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 1535 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes. The national care service is a good example. I would maybe not share Unison’s view on that, but it is a tangible example. However, there is a lot of other stuff in the submission that ticks the boxes that Stephen Smellie outlined as priorities, such as free school meals. I presume that Unison has a main focus on increasing funding for further and higher education not just in the interest of equity for students, but because there are substantial numbers of low-paid workers in those sectors.
How can we prioritise between different areas of spending that would all raise the wages of low-paid workers, lift children out of poverty and so on? We cannot do all the things at once. That is the issue that we have. Should free school meals, public sector pay, more funding for colleges or more funding for universities be prioritised? I realise that, in principle, in a utopian world, it should not be a matter of choosing between those things, but it will certainly be a matter of choices in the next few years. We will have to make the choices, but I am keen to know what the trade union movement’s priorities would be.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
At its core, it is the same question about prioritisation. Some of the tax proposals in Unison’s submission would require primary legislation, as they involve new tax powers. Given that the legislative timetable for the next couple of years is pretty tight, which of the brand-new proposals—the local inheritance tax or the replacement of council tax—would you prioritise for parliamentary and Government time?
09:45Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Thank you. I would be happy to come back in later, convener.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes, we can put that away until later—that is fine.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
Thanks.
I have one very brief follow-up question for David Lonsdale. David, you made an interesting remark about your opposition to income tax rises for those of modest income. Can I push you a little bit and ask you to define “modest income”? Are we talking about the cleaners on 18 grand whom Stephen Smellie mentioned, somebody on an average salary in the mid-20s or folk on 40 grand who, with fiscal drag, are heading towards being hit with the high income tax rate?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Finances 2023-24 (Impact of Cost of Living and Public Service Reform)
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Ross Greer
I want to jump back to something that Clare Reid said a couple of moments ago. She listed areas, particularly in enterprise and skills, where public spending will be reduced over the next couple of years. I do not think that anybody will pretend that that is a good thing, but the SCDI is also against any new business taxes and opposed not only to increasing income tax but to having fiscal drag through keeping income tax rates as they are. If there are areas where you are looking to increase spending and there is new revenue, the conclusion must be that there are areas of public spending elsewhere that you would deprioritise. Could you expand on that a little bit? Otherwise, I am not sure how to resolve your tax position and the spending priorities that you have outlined.
11:00Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
That deserves further exploration in Parliament, whether by this committee or by the Economy and Fair Work Committee.
I have a couple of questions about industrial relations. I would appreciate it if everyone could answer the first question, which is for clarification. A couple of years ago, there was an NJNC agreement about getting each college to agree on a local dispute-resolution process. That agreement was made with the EIS and there was a separate situation for support staff. I think that most, but not all, colleges have now agreed a local process and have put it in place. I would like each witness to say what the status of that is at their institution. We could hear from those who are here in person and then go to Angela Cox.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
Yes, thanks.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
I found Derek Smeall’s evidence on the role of the Glasgow Colleges Regional Board interesting. I acknowledge that Sue Macfarlane is in quite a different situation in UHI, but I would be interested to hear Ann Baxter’s perspective on what the Lanarkshire regional board does that individual institutional boards cannot do. I accept that it does stuff that individual boards do not do at the moment, simply because it exists, but does it do anything that it would simply not be possible for individual institutions to do?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Colleges Regionalisation Inquiry
Meeting date: 21 September 2022
Ross Greer
My next question is also for Angela. I am interested in your perspective because you have been elsewhere and are now in the Scottish sector.
There has been national industrial action in seven of the past eight years. Industrial relations in the college sector are clearly not what anyone would want them to be. I am interested in your reflections on how that compares to your experience elsewhere. Is there something that is unique to the Scottish sector that we can resolve, or have we ended up where we are because of the time that we are in and wider public finance constraints?
