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 1207 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
We have seen a significant reduction in mental health across our country. We have also seen significant increases in waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services; the longest wait in Glasgow was 37 weeks to be seen. The reduction in budget will surely impact and harm mental health.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
In stating your top three priorities, you spoke about NHS recovery, which you mentioned in your opening statement as well. You feel that you have put a budget for that in place. Therefore, at next year’s budget time, should we expect to see significant reductions in improvement in accident and emergency waiting times and significant improvements in waiting times for procedures?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I will take an intervention once I have made these points.
I have also heard of anaesthesia associates anaesthetising children. I am also concerned about how anaesthesia consultants know how to supervise and what their level of cover is when something goes wrong. They have never been trained in supervising anaesthesia associates.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
No—my argument is about the role of regulation. Of course, regulation is important and it must occur, but we cannot regulate what we cannot define. Scope of practice is a very important part of that regulation, as is supervision level. With regard to scope of practice, we know that there has been an expansion in what our PAs and AAs have been asked to do. I know of general practices that run almost entirely on the work of allied health professionals, which saves the practice money, but potentially provides a two-tier system and service to patients in remote and rural areas, where they will not, in the main, see doctors. With the expansion of that PA role also—
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I declare an interest as a practising NHS general practitioner. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and thank you for coming today.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
From your opening statement and from what we have heard and seen you say previously, do you feel that you have adequately resourced the Scottish NHS?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
In laying out those three priorities and in your opening statement, you spoke about mental health. Is it not true to say, though, that there is a 1.6 per cent real-terms reduction in your budget for mental health services?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
The BMA is telling us that patients and their families are unaware, many times, whether or not they have been assessed by a doctor. Following on from the convener’s last question, would it not add to that confusion to have the GMC regulate somebody else, seeing as it regulates doctors?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Yes.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 16 January 2024
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I declare an interest, as my entry in the register of members’ interests shows, I am a practising NHS GP.
I agree with the expansion of the multidisciplinary team, because we need to ensure that we have appropriate staff. However, I have a number of concerns about physician associates and anaesthetic associates. The first is about confusion. Why did the name change from “physician assistants” in 2003 to “physician associates” in 2014, and why are we sticking with “physician associates”?
