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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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 16 November 2023
Richard Leonard
We have tried to tease that out with the Scottish Government when it has sat in front of us.
I was going to bring this up later, but I will bring it up now, because it seems to relate to what you said. We have been struck by exhibit 3 in the report, which is a graph that shows huge variation among health boards in the number of face-to-face appointments versus telephone or video appointments. It is not just about remote communities being more reliant on video and telephone appointments. There are stark contrasts. For example, in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, 86 per cent of psychological therapy appointments are face to face, with just 14 per cent being by telephone or video, whereas in NHS Lanarkshire—which I guess has a similar population demographic—just 32 per cent are face to face and more than two thirds are by video or telephone. Can you explain that variation?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
Our principal agenda item this morning is agenda item 2, which is further consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission report “Adult mental health”. I welcome everybody to the meeting—we are very pleased to see you. The committee is taking evidence today in a round-table format, which will allow for a more freewheeling session in which we will draw on the experience of the witnesses and the people whom they represent, both in the room—which I will come to shortly—and online.
For those of you who are online—which is the majority of you—if you want to come in at any point, please request to speak via the chat box; that will assist us in making sure that you are brought in when you want. I also ask you to keep your audio and camera on at all times. Your audio will be operated through the Parliament—we will turn on your microphone for live audio when you want to speak.
As is customary for the round-table format, I begin by asking people to introduce themselves and their organisations. We will go round one by one, starting with Jo Anderson, who is with us in the committee room.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you, Meriem; that is very helpful.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
Thanks. The expression that the Auditor General used was “slow and complicated.” Do you think that that sums it up quite well?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
I will ask Jo Anderson to answer that. I will then bring in Peter Kelly on the same general theme and others who might have a response on the GP gateway point that Graham Simpson raised.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
That is helpful.
I will bring in Meriem Timizar next, because I am sure that she will pick up some of those themes.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
I thank Peter Kelly and the other contributors for those answers. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, we will not be able to take everybody who wants to come in on every question. I shall exercise egalitarian principles and make sure that everybody gets a reasonably equal amount of time. I apologise to those who wanted to come in on that question, but I will move things along and invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to the witnesses.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
Both Simon Porter and Peter Kelly indicated that they want to come in on that question. We will go to Simon next.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
In the time remaining, I will invite Graham Simpson to lead a discussion on an area that the committee is keen to get your views on.
Before I do so, I should say that we would very much welcome any written submissions that you want to provide the committee if you feel as though we have not covered some of the ground that you wanted us to cover. We have been really up against the clock this morning. We have been presented with a lot of rich evidence, which we will be keen to look at in more detail and reach some conclusions on, but we would really appreciate it if you could provide a written submission on anything that we have not covered.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes, absolutely.
I think that Graham Simpson wants to come in.
