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 1366 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2022
Miles Briggs
I think that all the committees that are considering the bill are hearing those concerns.
In their submissions, COSLA and Unison described a scenario in which local authorities could be competing against private and third sector providers. At last week’s meeting, we heard about two areas in which co-design—for want of a better word—with the third sector has been useful: the ending homelessness together programme and the Promise. People wish that the Government had approached the national care service with those principles in mind, rather than telling organisations how things will be.
Will you talk about your concerns about competition? Are they purely to do with bidding for contracts in the future, or are they also about workers’ terms and conditions? Tracey Dalling, you have touched on that.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2022
Miles Briggs
Good morning. To go back to the previous answer, all the committees in the Parliament that are looking at the bill are hearing from the sector that there is a lot confusion. People seem to be in the dark about where this is going to go, and that is important.
Last week, Audit Scotland told the committee that such reforms should be based on a clear business case, realistic costings and an assessment of impact on the wider public sector. From the two committees that I sit on, it is evident that that is not known by those who are going to be tasked with delivering a national care service. Do you recognise that the witnesses who are coming to the committees do not know what you are expecting them to do? We are hearing today that a national care service is potentially not what they think it will be.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2022
Miles Briggs
Thanks for that. To be fair, I note that all the committee’s witnesses have been positive about many aspects of the bill—for example, fair work, data sharing, ethical procurement and the need for a national improvement body. Local care boards could be developed to deliver that. Clinical care standards are something that I have always wanted. This is not about getting rid of everything that the Government has suggested; it is about trying to make it work.
No witnesses appear to support the transfer of roles, responsibilities or budgets away from local government to a new body. The direct impact on local authorities needs to be made clearer.
In the six years for which I have been an MSP I have never seen so many witnesses coming to Parliament expressing concerns, at this stage in the process of a bill. Given all that concern, and cross-party concerns, including from your party, would you be open to the bill being amended by Parliament in many ways to make it more in the spirit of co-design? Many people are expressing concern about that. The minister has been involved in previous legislation through which co-design has worked well—we have heard about that in relation to the Promise and to the ending homelessness together policy. Co-design needs to be delivered on the ground, so is there a chance to pause the process to try to get it right now?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2022
Miles Briggs
The Social Justice and Social Security Committee was told by Unison that members of the workforce are being asked to take a leap of faith with the national care service. I want to put to you a question that has been put to us this morning: who would be the employer of anyone who was transferred?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 November 2022
Miles Briggs
You just did.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Miles Briggs
Does anyone else want to come in on that point?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Miles Briggs
If no one else wants to come in on that point, I will move on to look at specific assumptions in the financial memorandum. It is assumed that 10 per cent of adult carers will be able to access short breaks and that an additional 14 per cent will use easy access support. That is less than 25 per cent of people potentially taking the entitlement for a short break. Why do you think such a low level of demand has been predicted?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Miles Briggs
Good morning to the panel, and thank you for joining us. This week and last week, a few committees have been looking at the bill. I am concerned about Audit Scotland’s comment with regard to the Scottish Government significantly understating the cost of delivering the bill. What are your views on that?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Miles Briggs
One of my concerns is that the data covers a pandemic period, when breaks were suspended and were not available. It feels as though the figure is artificially low in predicting potential uptake.
Will a national care service help to standardise the approach so that more carers can access support plans and statements, to ensure that they have the right to a break? We have discussed what is often referred to as a postcode lottery, in which people can access different services depending on where they live. On improvements in standards and consistency, I support clinical standards and think that we should have had them a long time ago in Scotland, although we do not necessarily need the bill to achieve that. Where could standards be improved and, importantly, how should they be included in the bill? There is very little detail.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Miles Briggs
A lot of what is in the bill has come out of the experience of people during the pandemic. For many of us, that was concerning. For example, I do not think that the Government has ever properly explained the measures on the suspension of power of attorney.
I am interested in the Anne’s law campaign, which I think all parties have supported. Section 40 in the bill requires care homes to comply with ministerial directions on visiting. That is about visiting, but my concern is that it does not necessarily talk about patient rights and individual rights. Does anyone have specific comments on section 40?
