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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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Should proxy voting exist for those occasions when an individual has to step away from being an MSP for a period of time, be it short, long or otherwise? Remote voting could be used if they still wanted to participate and represent their constituents, even though they were not necessarily in this place at that time.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
So, if the response to that question is that there is a permissive allowance to vote remotely, that meets the requirement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
We will. Thank you very much, Edward.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Thank you very much.
I will go first to Evelyn Tweed, who has a series of questions. As usual, the convener’s plea at this stage is that not everyone need answer all the questions. However, if you have something to contribute, please feel free to do so.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Agenda item 1 is “A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”, on publication of which the Presiding Officer wrote to the committee on 2 March 2023 to highlight a number of the report’s recommendations for the committee to consider. The committee considered the recommendations in private discussions at meetings on 9 March 2023 and 1 June 2023. The committee agreed that it would take oral evidence on the report from external experts and officials. A chamber debate on the report was held on 15 June 2023. Today’s session is to take oral evidence from experts.
I welcome to the committee Professor Sarah Childs and Professor Meryl Kenny, who are professors of gender and politics at the University of Edinburgh, and Susan Duffy, who is the head of engagement and communications at the Scottish Parliament. I also welcome Karen Adam MSP, who is a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee and has an interest in the matter. She is attending to listen and to inquire later about the evidence that she hears, should she need to do so.
I come to Susan Duffy first, for an introduction and a synopsis of what we are likely to explore today.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Evelyn, do you have any other questions?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Professor Kenny, would you like to respond to Karen Adam?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
That was excellent.
I am afraid to say that I have some nerdy questions. I am going to plump for this one to begin with, given that, at the minute, the committee is reviewing the proxy voting procedure that has been brought in. I am asking this not so much with regard to the gender-sensitive audit but to allow you to contribute to the evidence that we will consider in due course.
You have suggested that proxy voting be extended on the same grounds as remote voting. Would you like to speak to that? After all, it is a big step on from the trial that we have run. One of our early discussions was about the fact that in this iterative Parliament—to pick up on an earlier comment—we have the ability to vote remotely and it is a choice for the individual MSP. Was there a reason for that suggestion? If I am honest, I am not aware of the reasons for extending proxy voting on the same grounds as remote voting.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
That is fine. I am grateful for that response.
The other part—[Interruption.] Oh—I see that Evelyn Tweed would like to come back in.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
“A Parliament for All: Report of the Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Martin Whitfield
Excellent. The idea of 40 per cent, a 50-50 split or whatever is—I do not say this in a derogatory way—slightly arbitrary. We actually need to look at the problem that is in front of us, and our solution might be different for each of the issues of gender balance on committees, the gender balance of conveners and gender balance on various other committees. As long as the solutions are moving us iteratively down the road—obviously, subject to what we actually come up with—that would be welcomed as a step in the right direction for the gender audit.
I see that you agree, which is good.
You may be glad to know that I have come to the end of my slightly nerdy questions. Unless any of you would like to make a short final comment, I will close this part of the meeting. Thank you very much for coming. It has been an incredibly interesting dialogue and discussion. Should the committee have other questions, I hope that you will be open to writing to us to submit your thoughts. As always, the clerks are open to discussions in a two-way format to ensure that the committee has the evidence that it needs to make the best decisions. On behalf of the committee, I thank you for your attendance.
10:21 Meeting continued in private until 11:21.