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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Displaying 805 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
That would be helpful, thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
International Learning Exchange Programmes
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning. You have painted a great picture of the value of the schemes and the type of young people who are missing out. Can you give the committee an indication of the number of young people who were participating?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, minister. You will be quite familiar with the committee’s inquiry into college regionalisation, in which we called for more flexibility for colleges to manage their finances. You will know that they are restricted in their ability to generate additional income and that they have no ability to borrow or hold reserves, so we need to find a solution to enable them to operate within the current financial envelope in these challenging times.
When the previous minister visited the committee in November 2022, he was pressed on the urgency of those matters and on how quickly things could be dealt with. We now have the SFC’s review on sustainability. Will you talk about that? Also, you said that you met college principals and representatives last week. Did they come with specific ideas for what those flexibilities might look like and how you could assist them?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
I appreciate that, and I appreciate the fact that you are not able to go into detail. What I am looking for is an assurance that we can demonstrate colleges’ value by acting promptly on this and giving them those flexibilities.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
In line with that, the other area that I want to ask about is the value of colleges in the work that they do for people who are furthest away from education. You will recall that we have spoken about that previously. Such work takes a fair bit of investment as regards both staffing and money. I want to highlight that and also seek your agreement on it in principle. Although that work is of great value to our communities and our learners, it is more expensive, so it is the type of area that can often be cut when budgets are tight. That adds urgency to ensuring that we get a bit of flexibility and sustainability for our colleges.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Universities and Colleges Funding 2023-24
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Are you confident that our colleges will be able to continue delivering high-value but high-investment courses for citizens who need that additional support?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
I do not want to interrupt. I just feel that it is quite an important point. I appreciate that you are newer to the bill.
The evidence that we have heard is that there is concern that it is a move to a subjective test rather than having the objective safeguard of reasonableness in there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Good morning, minister. As you say, the bill is about advancing children’s rights, and I would like to cover some areas where concerns have been raised in that regard. On compulsory supervision orders, concerns have been raised with us that the imposition of movement restriction conditions could amount to the deprivation of liberty of a child or young person, without legal safeguards. Have you considered whether more needs to be done with regard to access to legal representation for young people?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Forgive me, minister, but the change that I am asking about is a move from something that has a—I am losing my words now. Give me a second.
The change to a consideration of psychological harm is a subjective test. There was perhaps some objectivity in relation to “reasonable person”. I might be getting that wrong; if I am, forgive me. That is the specific change that I am looking for your reflections on.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Ruth Maguire
Okay. Thank you.
The other change relates to criteria and a move to a consideration of what is described as psychological “harm”, which is a pretty subjective test—actually, it is a subjective test, not a “pretty subjective” test.
What consideration has been given to that in relation to children’s rights, and what specific safeguards would you put in place to ensure that MRCs are used only in the appropriate circumstances?
