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 800 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Should tight control of costs involve stopping any further bonuses?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of South Lanarkshire College”
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
After what appears to have been quite a protracted period during which the audit and risk committee and the board did not meet, they both did so in November 2021. What was the catalyst for those meetings resuming, and, in your view, are the board and the audit and risk committee now meeting regularly?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of South Lanarkshire College”
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
The audit body recommended that
“the college should reduce or extend the tenure of some members to provide for improved continuity of membership at the end of individuals’ tenure”
and said that that is being considered by the college. Will you provide some detail on how the college is taking that recommendation forward, and on the timescale for achievement?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of South Lanarkshire College”
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
At the point at which the auditor signed their opinion—in March 2022—papers for the college’s board and committee meetings that were held after June 2021 were not publicly available on the college’s website. However, by 31 July 2022—the date that the convener alluded to—the college was compliant with that aspect of the code. It therefore sounds as though things have improved. To what extent, though, did the college take prompt action on that recommendation? Do you have any concerns that it was too slow in meeting it?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of South Lanarkshire College”
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
That is fine. Thank you.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
From this point on, a lot rests on your shoulders. You have asked the director general for economy, as the accountable officer, to ensure that both they and FMPG
“do everything possible to improve productivity, maximise operational efficiency and ensure that there is a tight control on costs”.
How do you expect that to be achieved?
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
What assurance can you give the committee that there will be no additional funding beyond what has been forecast by the CEO of the yard and agreed by the Scottish Government—that is, no more than £97.5 million for vessel 801 and no more than £105.1 million for vessel 802? What assurance can you provide that that will not be exceeded?
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
You talked about the public’s anger about the delays and the cost overruns. This situation has been going on for eight years and there have been six ministers, but there have been no ministerial resignations. If there were to be any significant increase in costs or significant delays, would you resign, given that you have issued the direction?
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Gray. The assessment of value for money was detailed, but you said that it was narrow and that you had to set it against what you have described as a wider set of considerations. Can you provide to the committee or publish any detailed assessment of that wider set of considerations? You said that one of them was a conversation with Stuart McMillan, which does not sound particularly scientific.
Public Audit Committee
Written Authority: Completion of Vessel 802
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Craig Hoy
Do you not think that, given that we are talking about the commitment of a huge amount of taxpayers’ money, ministers should undertake more than anecdotal or non-scientific assessments when they seek to override official advice?
