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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 2698 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Budget (Website)
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
Exactly. The corporate body was not given the complete project spend. That makes it difficult for the corporate body not to approve it, because it does not know how much it is going to be in total over several years.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework: Ambitions into Action
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
I will be brief, because I note that time has gotten away from us. I have a question about scrutiny and accountability. I imagine that the key recommendations that will come from the committee will include recommendations on whether we have a commissioner and on the role of Audit Scotland. Can you give an idea of what would the commissioner’s office would do most of the time? How many people are we talking about? How big a unit would it be?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework: Ambitions into Action
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
The commissioner in Wales does not carry out an audit function such as that which is carried out by Audit Wales. I am trying to think what role Audit Scotland would play.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework: Ambitions into Action
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
Finally, you have mentioned a road in Wales. Who would have carried out the function in relation to that road if there were no commissioner responsible for wellbeing?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Budget (Website)
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
Michelle Hegarty’s point suggests that that is a lesson that has been learned: there is an overall project cost.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Budget (Website)
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
This is my last point, convener. Was the scope of the project agreed at the outset, or is that something that has been added to over multiple years?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Budget (Website)
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
My question is not about the functionality of the website but about the project initiation process and governance. Was it an agreed project and who signed it off? Was the overall cost of the project budget approved and, if so, by whom? Was the scope of the project agreed and, if so, by whom? Were the timescales of the project agreed and, if so, by whom?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Budget (Website)
Meeting date: 17 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
That is a complete failing. A project has been approved without people knowing its overall cost. It almost seems as though a framework agreement has been in place, which is more like a maintenance project for a website—just adding a bit more on every year. It did not go out to tender, so you did not know what the total cost was going to be—or maybe someone did—and you did not know what the scope would be because you had not drawn it up because there was no tender process. Am I wrong?
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
To ask the Scottish Government how much of the £500 million energy transition fund for the north-east has now been allocated. (S6O-01083)
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
General Question Time
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Douglas Lumsden
Meetings are one thing, but people want action. The fund was unveiled more than nine months ago, but we still have no details. I hear that £20 million was allocated in this year’s budget, but it appears that not one single penny has been spent and that the money is still sitting in the Government’s coffers. We also do not know whether the fund will complement the UK Government’s £16 billion transition fund. When will the devolved Government report back with an update about the fund so that it can actually start helping the people of the north-east?
