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 1114 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
I know that you just started in January, but the report says that the initial recommendation was made in 2018. Why has it taken so long for the framework that you intend to publish at the end of March to be produced?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
During 2021, the Scottish Government commissioned an external consultant to conduct a review of its relationships with public bodies. The review considered the current delivery of sponsorship arrangements in the Government, including how it should organise and manage its relationships with public bodies. It also considered how sponsors and public bodies can effectively manage risk and, importantly, the escalation of issues when challenges arise. What improvements has the consultant advised should be made? Has the Government accepted all the findings?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
We will see it then.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
You have explained how you will implement the recommendations, but I ask for timescales so that we know when they will be implemented and that we do not end up getting a report further down the line about—
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
Good morning, everybody. Paragraph 71 of the report mentions that
“Over the last year, there were several changes to the Scottish Government’s Corporate Board.”
Paragraph 72 says that the
“level of change will continue into next year”
and mentions that the recruitment campaigns for the posts of
“DG Economy and DG Net Zero were unsuccessful in identifying appointable candidates. These have been filled on an interim basis and will be re-advertised in early 2022.”
Our papers also note that four non-executive directors will reach the end of their terms in 2022. There is a lot of change and uncertainty there, so how does the Scottish Government intend to ensure stability and certainty within its leadership group? What plans are in place to manage its governance arrangements during that period?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
Thank you.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
Good morning, Auditor General. The committee has seen a lot of reports, but this is probably one of the most damning. Your comments in the report that
“The Scottish Government has not provided the necessary leadership for progress”
and
“Current arrangements are unlikely to achieve the ambitions for skills alignment at the pace required”
raise a lot of concern. The report states that the
“intended benefits of skills alignment ... have not been realised and the opportunity for more efficient and effective investment has been missed.”
I appreciate that this might be hard to quantify, but do you have any information on what the largely failed project has cost the public purse or, indeed, on what the opportunity costs have been as a result of the catalogue of errors outlined in the report?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
I think that you are right—the issue is the lost opportunity to bring benefits.
The report highlights that, although the Scottish Government made a commitment to skills alignment, there was a complete absence of strategic intent or a performance management framework to measure progress. Why were those fundamental elements not put in place? To what extent has that led to the significant lack of progress in skills alignment that is highlighted in your report?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
Thank you. I was going to ask about progress, but you have already answered my question.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Sharon Dowey
That brings me to my final question. The audit report takes us up to the end of November 2021. It is obvious that more Government involvement is needed. The Auditor General said that the Government welcomed the report and that it intends to issue further letters of guidance. Are we aware of any actions that the Government has actually taken since the report was completed?
