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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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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Displaying 1165 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I thank the panel, in particular the minister, for coming today.
The changes that are coming in on 1 November have caused some confusion and concern among patients, which has been communicated to us. What support is the Scottish Government providing to dentists to respond to an influx of concerned inquiries, and what public messaging and information are being provided to assure people that the change is nothing to be overly concerned about?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
Our notes say that delayed discharge has cost the NHS £190 million in the past year. That is clearly an opportunity cost. A lot of it is to do with the lack of efficient integration of healthcare with social care and hospice care. Do local authorities receive sufficient financial resources to deal with social care and efficiencies in the here and now?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I also want to raise a concern that the British Dental Association raised, which was about whether that approach is sufficient to narrow inequalities. My recent experience of trying to get an appointment for a check-up in my practice, which is probably in one of the poorer districts of Glasgow, is that it was very difficult, because the permanent dentist has left the practice, which is now using locums.
With regard to patients’ oral health, the change of wording in the regulations from “securing and maintaining” to “managing” arguably places more responsibility on the patient for their oral health. We know how difficult it is to rebook appointments when they are cancelled, and the appointment could slip. That could be even more complex for people who have poor mental health or chaotic lifestyles. Has the Scottish Government anticipated that risk? If so, what plans and measures are in place to mitigate it?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I thank the witnesses for their contributions so far. The minister gave evidence to the committee prior to the October recess and her officials confirmed to the committee that the co-design process for the charter of rights is still on-going. Have any of you been involved in a specific example of co-design in relation to the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
Do you feel that such an inherent part of the legislation and such a critical part of the ethos of how it will operate should be formed as a product of co-design with local government? Should that be a principle?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I appreciate that outline and your helpful explanation of the complex interfaces between the acute hospitals and social care settings. The fixation on delayed discharge might be to do with the fact that it is a clear measurement, whereas something such as avoidance of hospital admission is harder to quantify in firm numerical terms. That is a fair challenge.
However, I highlight the fact that Scotland’s acute hospital expenditure relative to expenditure on the healthcare system overall is probably among the highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. How do we pivot that back towards a more sustainable ratio that is more in line with OECD averages? How will the health and social care integration that is proposed through the national care service help to improve processes such as design processes, and to improve integration by pivoting the system away from the acute hospitals and more towards community settings?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I appreciate those points. Please keep us updated on your co-design activity and whether you feel that it is useful and sufficient.
Do you feel that, once the charter of rights is codified—to a satisfactory standard, hopefully—it should in principle be on the face of the bill?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 24 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
Okay. Thank you for that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
The point about continuous improvement, benchmarking and bringing everyone up to the highest common denominator is a helpful insight into the Government’s aspirations. However, an issue was brought up in discussion with the cabinet secretary. Last month, he told the committee that scrapping non-residential care charges by 2026 was not necessarily going to be achievable any more and it certainly was not going to be a key priority going forward. How does the Government propose to address the postcode lottery without scrapping non-residential care charges? Is that being considered in the development of the national care service?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Paul Sweeney
I am intrigued about practical realities. How do you pivot the healthcare system from current acute spend in hospitals towards preventative spend in communities? We spend more on acute hospitals than any other healthcare system in the developed world does. How do we shift the balance practically?
