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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 1019 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
That is an important point, and I would be interested to hear more about that from the committee. I can give a couple of examples of how we are moving forward with that.
The national improvement framework is one example. We are determined to ensure that spending on the education and skills portfolio has a direct impact on the national improvement framework and the work from that. That is all about improving outcomes for children and young people. The latest version of the framework was published in December. That is one example of the work that we do.
I also point to the work on the Scottish attainment challenge. There will be £1 billion of expenditure during this session of Parliament. It is vital that we know that the money is being spent in the most effective fashion. That is why my announcement to Parliament included the work that we will do with local authorities on stretch aims so that we will know what the money is being spent on and what schools and local authorities think that it will deliver. We will work closely with local authorities. Once we have that information, Education Scotland can ensure support for local authorities to deliver those outcomes, and we will be able to see what is being done to achieve them.
Those are two examples. The committee raises a fair point, and I am keen to see where we can do further work.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
The typical cost for a HEPA filter is not in the pack that I have with me. We looked at it when we were analysing the £5 million fund, so I can certainly get it to the committee very easily, but I do not have it with me today.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I am not yet aware of exactly when Ken Muir will report back. He is finalising that work just now, and the date is within his gift. We certainly expect to receive the report by the end of the year and will seek to publish it in due course after that. Obviously, at that point, the committee would be made aware of that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I am always concerned about teachers’ wellbeing. During a pandemic, there is a particular responsibility on the Government to take that seriously.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I certainly think that it is something that the teacher census can look at. I am very conscious of the fact that, just as the Government is looking to ensure that the money delivers over this year, the committee has a key interest in that as well.
We do not dictate to local authorities how the money should be spent. It is important that local authorities are the recruiters of educational staff. They are able to determine what is best in their local area, so we do not provide the funding on the basis that it has to be for a certain percentage of teachers or support staff. That would be the wrong message to send to local authorities. We are keen to ensure that it is delivered locally by them.
We have to be careful not to overburden local authorities with reporting duties on this matter, but we keep in close contact with councils and COSLA right across the year in order to be able to determine what is happening. Numbers are very fluid—they change from week to week depending on what is happening in local authorities. It is not a static exercise. We will continue to keep a close eye on the situation and we will keep the committee updated in any way that we can.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
I do not have figures about the uptake, but I would be happy to provide that information to the committee. The feedback that I have seen is that the scheme has been widely welcomed and that teachers have found such schemes useful. Education Scotland has also delivered on some aspects of teacher wellbeing. It is important to look at those things in the round. The feedback that I have had is that the scheme has been well received and well used. I do not have the exact figures to hand, but I can supply them to the committee.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
You have raised a very important point about how that money goes out to local authorities and local authorities’ discretion to move it forward. Yes, the money will go from the Scottish Government to local authorities to allow them to make the decisions that they wish to make, within the funding streams that we put out.
Alison Cumming or Graeme Logan may wish to give more detail of that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Within the budget, we are allocating nearly £2 billion to Scotland’s universities and colleges. That is a fair settlement in a challenging area. We have also provided fair settlements in the past. I appreciate that there have been challenges but, for example, between 2007 and 2021, the college sector resource budget has increased by more than 30 per cent in cash terms. I give that as an example of how we can invest, have invested and will continue to invest in the college and university sector, and we will continue to look at that very closely in the spending review.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
We are committed to driving the work forward. The Government would like that to happen in August, but the Government cannot make it happen. The Government is absolutely committed to doing everything that we can, on our side, to make that happen, but it is not just up to the Government. The Government is willing to do that, and I know that our partners in local authorities and trade unions will be looking at the matter very carefully, too. There is a willingness to make that happen, and there is an absolute commitment from the Government to do everything that we can to make it happen, but we have to look at the very fine details of how we make it happen in every school. We have to consider the different sizes of schools and local authorities. We will start by then if we can.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Budget 2022-23
Meeting date: 12 January 2022
Shirley-Anne Somerville
Yes. In many ways, we are determined to drive up teacher numbers so quickly to ensure that we can move forward on reducing class contact time.
