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 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Craig Hoy
It does, thank you.
I have one final question before we move on to the financial impact of the delay. First, I want to put it out there that the cost of the delay was £21.6 million. Given your previous answer, would it be right to say that, even though there is a perception that that money may be lost, you have actually used it to invest in greater flexibility, agility and efficiency in the system? Perhaps crisis begets opportunity in that respect.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Craig Hoy
Thank you very much.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Craig Hoy
When Stephen Boyle was before the committee, we talked with him about the potential impact of a further delay in the census. The decisions of the past 48 hours, and the Covid data that has emerged, probably mean that that is less likely to happen. Nevertheless, could you give me a flavour of the options that NRS has considered for the census if lockdown restrictions return? In addition, have any resources or money been committed to contingency planning in that regard?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Stephen. I do not want to put you on the spot, and I am not sure how good your live tracking presently is in relation to the new round of business support, but about £375 million of support for business was announced in December. The general impression that I am getting through my postbag and from talking to people in hospitality businesses and suchlike is that the money is slower in going out the door than it was before.
On Tuesday, the First Minister said:
“we are working with local authorities and other agencies to get the money out the door and into the bank accounts of those who need it as quickly as possible. However, there are checks and processes that have to be applied to guard against fraud.”—[Official Report, 18 January 2022; c 22.]
Do you have any impression of whether it is taking longer to process this current round? Is that because lessons have been learned and further checks and balances have been put into the process? Could there be other reasons for the delay in this round of disbursements?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Whitfield, and a happy new year to you and committee members.
On 7 December 2021, the cross-party group on beer and pubs held its inaugural meeting, in order to prepare for this meeting. That was in recognition of the fact that there are now more than 4,600 pubs and 120 breweries in Scotland. The industry is an emerging sector, and there is presently no committee or cross-party group looking after its interests within the Parliament. We also know that, as well as being an emerging sector, it is a sector that is presently at risk as a result of the Covid pandemic and the restrictions that were imposed on the hospitality sector.
The purpose of the CPG is to celebrate, recognise and enhance the contribution of the brewing and pub-related hospitality industry in Scotland. We hope that the CPG will operate through semi-regular meetings, occasional visits and an annual event at which the best of Scotland’s beer and pub sector can be showcased.
The CPG will aim to develop constituency-level awareness of the contribution of the beer and pub sector as well as an awards programme to encourage recognition of local pubs and breweries. I believe that the convener recognises that contribution due to the fact that, while serving as a member of Parliament, he nominated my local pub in East Lothian, the Tyneside Tavern—one of many excellent pubs in East Lothian and across the south of Scotland—for a local pub award.
The CPG will also provide a forum in which to discuss the policies that will impact on the beer and pub sector and affect beer drinkers and pub goers across Scotland. We will also look closely at the important issues of responsible drinking, the social impact of alcohol and the public health implications.
We understand that beer and pubs play a huge part in every region that we represent, socially and economically, and that they are job and wealth creators. That will also be a core focus of the group.
With the committee’s permission, I would be the convener of the group and Paul Sweeney would be the vice-convener. We also have a wide range of prospective members from across all parties. The secretariat would be provided and supported by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, the Campaign for Real Ale—CAMRA—and the Society of Independent Brewers, which is known as SIBA. We would also be supported by the Scottish Beer and Pub Association. With that, I will hand back to the convener.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
To put it simply, it would be CAMRA and SIBA. However, Paul Hegarty from the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group attended as a guest and would be supportive in helping us establish some of the programmes that have been very successful at Westminster—such as the awards programme—as well as in relation to the possibility of getting a guest ale or beer into the parliamentary estate at Holyrood.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Groups
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
Thank you very much for your time.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
That is reassuring. I wanted to get reassurance that the organisation was not looking inwards and was engaging externally—I take reassurance from your answer.
The 2018-19 section 22 report highlighted leadership issues and identified that they
“led to a lack of confidence and a culture of mistrust throughout the organisation.”
As we know from other recent inquiries, organisational culture does not change overnight. That change requires hard work and a lot of effort. What work has the board undertaken to build back trust and regain the confidence of its staff?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
On recruitment challenges, the first bullet point in the report highlights that
“The Bòrd has amended its policy regarding the recruitment of Gaelic speakers. A post will be advertised twice before the essential skill of Gaelic is reviewed.”
However, the board still includes a requirement for any new staff joining the organisation to commit to learning Gaelic if they are not already Gaelic speakers. That sounds to me to be a very reasonable approach. Do you know whether that has led to any tangible improvements in the board’s recruitment process?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Craig Hoy
Thank you.
You have almost read my mind in respect of the next question, but I will seek confirmation from you. You referred to the fact that the Scottish Government provided additional funding of £8.8 million, which was what would have been anticipated through brokerage. Will you confirm that and tell us why the Scottish Government provided the £8.8 million as additional funding, and not brokerage?
