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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 4111 contributions
|
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
The issue for us—you might not feel it from where you are sitting—is that it almost seems as though you have been insulated, relatively speaking, from the really hard decisions that are being made by the public sector across the board, given that, as I said, the Government’s cash uplift was 2.6 per cent and the minimum uplift of the organisations before us is 7.4 per cent. I think that the NHS and local government and the police would also say, “Salaries are a huge chunk of what we do.” I think that we are all in that position.
Some commissions and commissioners have been around for many years. I think, and I think some of my colleagues will agree with me, that when an organisation is set up there is a head of steam, a mission to accomplish, and a lot of things that it wants to do initially. One thinks of a big burst and then settling almost into a steady state, perhaps. Maybe I have this wrong, but that is why, when there are big jumps in terms of budget you think, “Well, why is that happening?”
I understand from the Information Commissioner’s point of view that the number of FOI requests is going up all the time and there is a real issue about that. We do appreciate that, but in other areas one wonders. Have other colleagues anything that they want to say?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Yes, indeed. One thing that all the written submissions have been very clear about is the roles that you all have. They are all really well written submissions, so I compliment you on that.
We had a private session with a colleague who talked about New Zealand and where all the overlaps are. We also looked at the UK and where the potential overlaps are there. There is a lot of concern about overlaps, and indeed gaps in Scotland. Is there any overlap between the two of you?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Yes, indeed.
One thing that has been talked about a lot is the issue of overlaps and gaps. I will come to all of you, but I will first go back to you, Ian. Do you feel that we need a Standards Commission for Scotland and an Ethical Standards Commissioner? Is there not an overlap in the remits? Could the two be merged, for example?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Lorna, David and Ian, do you agree with that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
But who is not going to say that? The NHS would say that, the police would say that, and local government would say exactly that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
You think that they are completely distinct.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Where would gaps exist?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
You do not think that that could be more efficiently and effectively done under one umbrella.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
What about you, Brian?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2024 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. The first item on our agenda is to continue to hear evidence in relation to our inquiry into Scotland’s commissioner landscape. We are joined by Ian Bruce, Ethical Standards Commissioner; Dr Brian Plastow, Scottish Biometrics Commissioner; David Hamilton, Scottish Information Commissioner; and Lorna Johnston, executive director, Standards Commission for Scotland. I welcome you all to the meeting. I am sure that you will be very helpful to our deliberations. I may direct questions at one individual or ask you collectively; it is up to yourselves whether you want to come in on the back of someone else’s response.
What stimulated the inquiry was, firstly, the rising cost of commissioners, as well as their proliferation. For example, in January we took evidence from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on the annual budget round for the current financial year. At that time, we were faced with a 2.6 per cent increase in cash terms in the Scottish budget, which as you know, if you know the gross domestic product deflator, is significantly below the rate of inflation. When we looked at the office-holders, however, we found that the actual funding bids were all significantly in excess of that. For example, the four organisations represented here today made bids as follows: the Scottish Information Commissioner asked for an 8.1 per cent uplift; the Ethical Standards Commissioner for a 13.2 per cent uplift; the Standards Commission for Scotland for a 7.4 per cent uplift; and the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner for 12.4 per cent.
The national health service, the police and so on did not get those kinds of uplifts. Obviously, I have your submissions here but, for the public record, could you say how you feel that those increases are justified at a time of tremendous financial pressure? Who would like to go first? Yes, Brian; you have a fairly small budget, I suppose, although I am interested in hearing from everyone.
