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 1066 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
I was just going to talk about recommendation 11 in the report. Nobody will be surprised to learn that I would promote the Parliament and the committees going out into communities. In addition to the examples that you have highlighted, convener, I would also mention our visit to Loch Fyne and the Rest and Be Thankful.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
With regard to point 5, on community engagement, and Maria’s comments, is that not what ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are meant to do with surgeries at the weekends to make sure that the public can get to them easily in order to engage?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
I was interested in that, because I wondered whether it was about people complaining that their MSP does not hold any surgeries or is not engaging in the community and asking whether he can be held to account for that.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
That was, if you will remember, quite well attended, because I think that I was the chair that day. That sort of engagement works; it was not just a matter of going out there and simply doing what the committee was designed to do. At the end of each of the days, we had a general question-and-answer session with the public about how the Parliament worked, and it was good to see it promoted in that way.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
I am David Torrance MSP.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
Recommendation 17 is important, because if we can engage with young people and reach out to them, they will engage with the Parliament much more easily in later life. The Parliament is only just over 20 years old. For many people in Scotland, this Parliament was not here when they were younger or even middle-aged, so it is unlikely that they would have engaged with it at any time in their lives. That is a key point.
On the point about mentorships, internships and competitions, I run a Christmas card competition for school kids, but I could not offer them a prize in the Parliament—a day out in the Parliament and a meal, for example. As you know, that is not allowed. That should be looked at. I have six or seven primary schools involved in my Christmas card competition, which is great.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
When I heard that 19 individuals with such different backgrounds were going to meet, I thought that it could be a recipe for disaster. However, I am really impressed with the 17 recommendations and that the group were 100 per cent in agreement on them, so I say well done to every one of the people who took part.
I have a question about engagement and individuals with lived experience. I have been in the Parliament 11 years and some of us have been here a lot longer—I am not looking at the convener. We see the same witnesses all the time. It is the same groups of self-interest. How does the Parliament reach out to get people with lived experience? How do we make the effort to go out into the communities and find people rather than getting the same groups give evidence to the committee all the time?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
Everything is focused in the central belt, which is where I live. For rural communities and hard-to-engage areas, especially the areas of deprivation that many of us have in our constituencies, the bus would be a great way for the public to engage with Parliament. How many people in rural communities ever see what the Parliament does or engage with it? In my constituency, I have some of the areas of highest deprivation in Scotland, and it is very difficult to communicate with people in those areas. Something like a bus going into their areas or to their community hubs would promote what the Parliament does and how people can engage with it. It is a really good idea.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
I think that, if a bus is to go out, it has to promote how people can engage with the Parliament and how the Parliament can help them to engage. Once we add politicians, another dimension would come in, which would send the whole process skew-whiff. We all know what would happen. We would take our own self-interest to heart—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Public Participation Inquiry
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
David Torrance
We all know it. [Laughter.] Let us be open and honest, no matter what. If a bus is to go out there, I really think that we need to keep politicians well clear of it.
