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 1207 contributions
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Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I turn to Gordon Jamieson. I was on Uist and talked to someone who told me that there are around 1,200 people on his island and that he knows them all. In that type of small community—its size is probably one of the reasons a lot of people move out—do you think that the stigma of mental health might be a hindrance to people seeking help?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
My final question is about participation in sport for everyone, whatever level they play at. If I want to play squash, I want to play against somebody who is at my level, and I want the playing field to be level in everything that we do, because sport is inherently not fair. There are categories in everything. Do you feel—I suppose that you could give your personal opinion or LEAP Sports Scotland’s opinion—that trans athletes have an unfair advantage in participating in competition compared with biological women?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I have asked many different people—from elite sport through to other areas—that same question and, invariably, the answer is that they do not hold records. Your group is exceptional, Lynne. If we do not know the ethnicity of the women who are participating in sport, how can we know how to do better?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Thank you. I will stay with you, Gordon, for my final question.
Population decline is a serious issue, as is housing. If you are earning £100,000-plus, you will probably be able to find accommodation, but not everyone is fortunate enough to be earning that type of money and many of the jobs that are you are looking to recruit for are not in that bracket. One of the jobs that I saw advertised was a consultant post—which is, admittedly, a very well-paid job—and there was an annual £1,279 “distant islands allowance”. That does not seem to be a huge amount to attract people to the Western Isles. What measures need to be taken to make it more attractive for people to come to work where you are?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
I agree with everything that Lynne Glen said about ensuring that we try to get everyone involved in sport, because we know that it helps with mental health and so many other things. Stigma can put a barrier in the way of people from the LGBTQ+ community wanting to participate in sport.
I turn to Heidi Vistisen. Heidi, I have some direct questions in response to your answers to Tess White. In one of those responses, you used the phrase “when necessary”. When is it necessary?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Okay. Let us look at someone who wants to train to be a runner or an athlete, for example. There should be no barriers to training, but when it comes to the competing side, World Athletics has said that trans people cannot compete in women’s categories. Is that an example of where the governing body has said something that needs to be put into place at the more junior levels?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Scrutiny of NHS Boards (NHS Shetland, NHS Eileanan Siar and NHS Orkney)
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Perhaps you could write to us with that.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
As a practising GP, I can say that access to records is shocking. It is not good enough to say that you are going to create a new system and that GPs might be able to access that, because I already log into three different systems and it takes forever to search for things. How will the new system that you are creating be linked to the records that already exist for GPs?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Complex Mesh Surgical Service
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Dr Sandesh Gulhane
Forgive me, but you are not just a patient; you are the minister in charge. It is very important to have a safety mechanism to ensure that that occurs. In relation to GPs’ ability to co-ordinate patient care, when we have a scenario in which a GP would refer someone to a service, which would then refer the person to NHS GG&C, and there are multiple players involved, it is impossible to keep track of where things are. Would a simplified method be better in such circumstances?
