Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Item 3 is consideration of a number of items of correspondence that the committee received during the summer recess. I refer members to paper 2. As you will see, the clerks have suggested some follow-up actions in the table in paragraph 3.
I propose that we take each letter in turn. I will ask the committee for any views, and then for agreement, on how we wish to proceed with each of them.
We will start with the letter that the committee received from the Minister for Community Safety in relation to legal aid. Do members wish to make any comments on the correspondence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you very much for that. Members have made valid points, not least in recognising what, at this point, the committee鈥檚 role is and is not.
I found both sets of correspondence to be comprehensive and helpful in setting out the historical context for today鈥檚 legal aid provision. It is clearly not a straightforward situation and challenges remain with regard to everyone getting to where they would like to be. I agree with Collette Stevenson about our ideally having a system that meets the needs of those who work in it and those who are in receipt of the services that are provided through legal aid.
I do not want to repeat the points that members have already covered. I am therefore happy to pick them up and link with SPICe to get further information on the context of all of this, as well as the timeline that Jamie Greene has mentioned, which would be helpful.
I note that the Scottish Government is currently in negotiations and has undertaken to update us on their progress, as well as on the review of the Public Defence Solicitors Office. I am happy for us to write the minister for an update on that progress and to refer to the Edinburgh Bar Association letter that we received yesterday. We will also cover the issue in our budget scrutiny, as it will form an important part of that forthcoming process.
I therefore propose that we link with SPICe and write to the minister on the points that we have raised. Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
I move to our second letter, which is from the Scottish Government and outlines its plans following the consultation on the not proven verdict and other matters. Yesterday in Parliament we heard an update in relation to the programme for government around the proposals to abolish the not proven verdict.
Do members wish to make any comments on that correspondence?
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Thank you for that. You are right that there does not seem to be any indication that naloxone is being used鈥攐r being carried鈥攁t the moment. I am more than happy to write to the SFRS, to raise the points that you have made and to get a more detailed update on progress around that. Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Yes鈥攊t is just as easy to do that.
Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 7 September 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Jamie, do you want to come in? I will then bring in Collette Stevenson.
Criminal Justice Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Good morning, and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2022 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Collette Stevenson.
Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of our approach to the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. Do we agree to take that item in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Audrey Nicoll
Our next item of business is consideration of a negative instrument. I refer members to paper 1. Do members have any questions on the content of the instrument?
Criminal Justice Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Audrey Nicoll
I, too, associate myself with the comments that Fulton MacGregor and Katy Clark have made. It is a welcome step forward, and the spirit of it seems to be perfectly sound.
On that basis, members are content not to make any specific recommendations to the Parliament on the instrument. I thank members for their views.
That concludes the public part of the meeting. We move into private session.
10:34 Meeting continued in private until 11:39.Criminal Justice Committee
Police Numbers and New Pension Arrangements
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Audrey Nicoll
That was a helpful discussion and a lot of legitimate points were raised. Without diminishing what is happening, because this is an exceptional departure of police officers in terms of the numbers that are involved, Police Scotland ordinarily has an exodus of officers year on year, as members know. The numbers of officers leaving is to a certain extent dictated by 30 years ago. In the 1970s, a high number of officers were recruited, courtesy of pay and conditions improving. To a certain extent, divisional forces before Police Scotland and now Police Scotland have experience of managing that changing staff profile, but I agree that this is an unusual set of circumstances, which arises out of the change in pension provisions and arrangements.
It is important that we have been able to put our views on the record. We have published the letters that we received from Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Federation, which were helpful. It is also important to note that the Scottish Police Authority has an important role in managing and responding to the issue.
Given that we are a couple of weeks away from recess, if members agree, I propose to follow up by asking Police Scotland for its initial response to the correspondence from Scottish Police Federation and to comment on the concerns that it raises. We can consider the potential underpinning budget issues in our forthcoming budget scrutiny process. At this point in the year, if members agree, as a starting point, we should ask Police Scotland for its response to the SPF鈥檚 comments, keep the situation under review and revisit it when we feel that that is required. Do members agree with that?
