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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 1174 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
In your submission to the committee of 7 March, you said that working groups on the future of air traffic control, particularly at Wick and Benbecula, were yet to be established. Has there been any progress on that? Would you like to see that happen? Is there a need for that?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
I recall the petitioners presenting a particular case study. If we are planning a visit, it might be interesting to visit that location to see the situation on the ground.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
I fully agree with that idea. The petitioner and several respondents to the petition have been trying to establish parity with other practices in the UK, and it is important to investigate where practices should align.
I felt that the Royal College of Pathologists submission was a bit excessive in making the point about potential legal reasons for retaining samples from bodies. The implication that next of kin might want to defeat the ends of justice by denying a post mortem was potentially quite offensive. That would be the case in a limited and significant set of circumstances only. It is not relevant to the petition.
We need to understand exactly what the Royal College of Pathologists means by that. A thorough investigation is probably needed into the circumstances in which samples would be retained for a criminal investigation. In due course, once it is established that there is no foul play in relation to a death, the samples could be released for burial or whatever the family wishes to do with them.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
The main consideration for a lot of people in relation to the changes has been aviation safety. What is your union’s position on the implications of the changes in air traffic control for aviation safety?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
New Petitions
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Paul Sweeney
I agree with our closing the petition, but perhaps we could advise the petitioner that the facility of contacting their local member or members of the Scottish Parliament is available to them for lodging written questions closer to the time to get more detail on the nature of the advertising campaign. If there is further dissatisfaction with how the campaign is running, that could be addressed through their local members of the Scottish Parliament.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Paul Sweeney
The recommendations are set out in summary and in detail in the report and cover two themes, which are
“developing a broad range of participation and democratic innovations”,
and
“using this system as a basis to establish routine use of Citizens’ Assemblies in Scotland”.
On the first theme, different time periods are specified. There are early foundational actions, actions in the current session of Parliament to May 2026 and longer-term ambitions for consideration. Obviously, we know the length of the current parliamentary session, but the other time periods are perhaps not so specific.
There are significant asks of the Scottish Government. For example, there is a requirement for a unit in the Scottish Government with responsibility for participation, which seems to be a response to the objective of providing an indication of the necessary resources—obviously, that will have to be led by Government.
There are also a number of recommendations that engage the Parliament specifically. For instance, there are the recommendations to
“Adopt values, principles and standards for institutionalising participatory and deliberative democracy in Scotland ... Support upcoming reviews and legislation to embed participation and deliberation across the system ... Consider the proposals of the Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Scotland for new infrastructure associated with the Scottish Parliament ... Collaborate with local government, public services and Parliament to establish and agree a clear agenda setting guidelines for all Citizens’ Assemblies”
and to
“Connect to the Scottish Parliament Committee system for scrutiny of Citizens’ Assembly processes and recommendations”.
Bearing in mind the recommendations that engage the Parliament, how do the different categories and time periods relate to one another, and which are particularly time critical? What recommendation prioritisation took place in the group, and are there any critical recommendations that we should take particular note of? I open that
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Paul Sweeney
Sorry, convener.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Paul Sweeney
Do any of the witnesses want to make any final points on the report’s implications for the Parliament? Is there anything that the committee should latch on to and take forward?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Paul Sweeney
[Inaudible.]—indicative set of practical opportunities that we might be able to pursue. You said that you do not want to jump the gun in relation to what resourcing might look like, but have there been any indicative costings for the resources that will be necessary to support the work that you are proposing?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Paul Sweeney
Thank you for those answers. I am trying to establish an example on which there could be more rapid movement. Yesterday, there was a debate on the new national planning framework 4, and it was mentioned earlier that public engagement on planning can often be in the hostile context of a perceived threat. Has there been consideration of actions that the Parliament could take, perhaps through this committee or other committees, to advance the agenda of citizens assemblies or other approaches to deliberative democracy in relation to, for example, NPF4 and reform of the planning system? Is that a particular case that the committee could take cognisance of?
