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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 2347 contributions
|
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
I was interested in the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association鈥檚 survey, and I want to ask a question that is related to what Fergus Ewing was asking about. We were talking about demonstrated attainment. According to the survey, 36 per cent of teachers believed that the evidence that they had collected truly demonstrated their pupil鈥檚 attainment, but that means that 64 per cent did not. What is your reaction to that data? Should we be questioning it?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
No, that was excellent.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
Michael Marra has an interesting declaration of interests.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
Audrey May talked about some people going back to school and hitting the ground running, as if nothing had interrupted their stride. However, did the gap not widen for those who did not have the same connections? I am asking that because I find it quite hard to believe that it did not. If a person was not able to take advantage because of a home environment or a material basis, did they not fall further behind? I apologise; I am using a pejorative term. Did the gap not widen?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
Do you have a question?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
In that case, I will pass back to Fergus Ewing.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
Audrey, do you want to comment?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
We could talk more about the costs that go with that compression and overassessment, but I have no doubt that my colleagues will get on to them.
I will bring in Fergus Ewing, who wishes to ask a question at this point.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
That is what the OECD encourages us to do, is it not鈥攖o go back to the vision?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Alternative Certification Model
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Stephen Kerr
Thank you for asking that question. I, too, have had representation from students in colleges who are reporting similar experiences to the ones that you just described.
