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
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Why would Derek Mackay have that impression and communicate that to Stuart McMillan?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Specifically, he is saying that you sought the authorisation to proceed from ministers.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Morag McNeill said that ministers told you that the deal was authorised and that you should proceed. Therefore, you were effectively overruled, were you not?
Public Audit Committee
Major Capital Projects
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Craig Hoy
With major infrastructure projects, there are the finances, there is the planning system, and then there is the broader policy dimension. In the past 12 months, we have seen the Green Party come into Government and there is an attitude within the party—I am looking at a headline from a few years ago, which reads:
“Greens launch campaign to stop Sheriffhall spaghetti junction”.
There is a particular quote that stands out, which says:
“Since the 1960s we’ve known that if you build more roads, they fill up with cars. That’s why the proposal to turn Sheriffhall roundabout into a spaghetti junction isn’t an upgrade”.
Is there now a change in policy focus that you think will impede some of these major infrastructure projects, particularly in relation to roads?
Public Audit Committee
Major Capital Projects
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Is there a risk that we could get an anti-roads agenda coming in? You guys could all be out of a job.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s economy: supporting businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic”
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Paragraph 52 on page 17 of the briefing states that you plan to
“Consider further analysis of business support funding information after the Scottish Government has completed its data cleansing exercise.”
Can you tell us more about that work and its timescales? Can you tell us what you do not know at this point in time or what you are hoping to achieve through the process?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s economy: supporting businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic”
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Craig Hoy
Last time we touched on the matter, you said that you thought the assessment of 1 to 2 per cent for fraud and error was reasonable. How do you come to that conclusion?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s economy: supporting businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic”
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Craig Hoy
On fraud and error, in certain defined circumstances it might be quite difficult to assess whether a fraudulent claim was made or somebody was simply misinterpreting the rules. For example, the principle is that the ratepayer applies for small business support funding. I heard an example where somebody who was subletting within a broader unit made a claim and then the ratepayer, who was also operating from that unit, made a claim, only to find that the person to whom he sublet some space had got there before him. In those circumstances, it would be difficult to say whether that was fraud or error. Where there are clear-cut cases of fraud, you said that by logic there should be recovery action. Do you have any assessment of how much of that £16 to £32 million will, in effect, be error? In those circumstances, should there be recovery action or will some kind of complex repayment process have to be undertaken?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Social security: Progress on implementing the devolved benefits”
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Craig Hoy
We note that, as a result of the Covid pandemic, some degree of prioritisation has been entered into and some of the more complex benefits are due to be delivered at pace over the coming years, including the adult disability payment. Do you believe that the current timetable, which is in exhibit 1, represents a sustainable pace of change? Do you think that it makes sufficient allowance for unforeseen circumstances or for competing priorities, such as the creation of a national care service? Is the timescale credible, or do you think that we will have to perhaps build in time for further delays?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Social security: Progress on implementing the devolved benefits”
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Craig Hoy
One of the benefits that were introduced despite the Covid pandemic was the child disability payment, which was rolled out nationally in November 2021, following a pilot in three local authority areas. Your report states that the pilot provided a limited opportunity to test aspects of the benefit and that data collection was still being developed during the pilot process. What were the risks of the Government launching the pilot without sufficient testing and how has that impacted data collection? Are you confident that the current data collection system are fit for purpose?
