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
Scottish Government Relationships with Public Bodies (Progress Review)
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Ms MacLean, can you give us an example of that good practice? What things do you typically look for?
Public Audit Committee
Scottish Government Relationships with Public Bodies (Progress Review)
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Recommendation 7 deals with how regular contact between sponsorship teams and boards should be. What do you see as an appropriate level of contact and what form would that take? How can we avoid repeats of situations similar to those involving Bòrd na Gàidhlig and the Crofting Commission?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Finally, the briefing recommends that the Scottish Government should
“set out options and progress actions to meet the ... targets”
and that they be put in place, or certainly developed,
“well in advance ... of 2026.”
Are you sighted on the Government’s action or inaction in relation to that, and can you update us on what has been put in place?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Paragraph 71 mentions not only the importance of employability policies in meeting targets but the very long lead time before they have any impact. Mr Boyle, do you have any impression that the Scottish or UK Government is setting in place the long-term employability and employment policies that will help reduce and then eradicate child poverty over a longer cycle?
Public Audit Committee
Scottish Government Relationships with Public Bodies (Progress Review)
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Recommendation 1 states that portfolio accountable officers should ensure that sponsor teams work with public bodies and their accountable officers to make sure that their roles and responsibilities are as clear as possible. Can you provide an update on the progress that has been made on implementing that recommendation throughout the Scottish Government?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 6 October 2022
Craig Hoy
Paragraphs 66 to 69 of the briefing look at whether the targets will be hit or missed and mention “key commentators” who have noted that policy changes will be required in order for the Government to achieve its poverty targets. Can you give a flavour of who those commentators are? I saw that the Fraser of Allander Institute was quoted in the report. What are those commentators’ recommendations on the significant policy changes that might help us to meet those targets?
Public Audit Committee
“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
The figures speak for themselves: in 2018-19, there were 1,238 cases and, most recently, the figure was 177, so there seems to be a causal link.
On the sum of the overpayments, the report states that the average individual value of housing benefit overpayments has risen from £2,300, in effect, in 2018-19 to nearly £6,700 in 2020-21. Are you aware of any particular reasons for that significant jump?
Public Audit Committee
“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
On the broader issue of recovery and prosecution, the public might be quite shocked to see that there was £15 million of potential fraud and overpayment in a single year and £160 million in total since the initiative began but, in the year that we are considering, only four cases were referred for prosecution in Scotland, which obviously does not mean that there would be a legal sanction against those individuals.
Let us look at a couple of the case studies that you used to highlight examples of fraud. In one, which concerns non-domestic rates and the small business bonus scheme, a ratepayer failed to declare other business premises, which resulted in an £11,000 overpayment. Apparently, that is the first business rates case to be reported for prosecution in Scotland, so action is being taken on that. However, on pensions, there is an example of somebody who claimed £10,560 and was overpaid £6,600. He received a police caution and the full amount was repaid. Then there is a case in relation to a council tax reduction claimant who failed to declare pension contributions and a pension lump sum but made off with nearly £15,000. The council is recovering the amount but there is no reference to any prosecution or any report to the procurator fiscal.
Is there a sense that the system is getting tough on recovery but there still seems to be a light touch approach on sanctions and prosecution?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
I want to focus on the progress that has been made since the situation first emerged. The Auditor General’s report clearly identifies that relationships had deteriorated to a pretty poor standard. How have the working relationships between the commissioner’s office, the Standards Commission, the corporate body and the committees of the Scottish Parliament improved since what we might call their nadir?
10:30