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 2603 contributions
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Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
In the early stages of discussions, when we were putting the group together, a couple of areas were highlighted that were causing some issues. One was about Government policy, both north and south of the border, and the lack of clarification that would allow the industry to develop. There were also concerns about regulatory constraints, because the regulations are not moving as fast as the space industry is. That is a UK issue that we would hope to highlight and explore with the APPG in Westminster.
09:45We need a joined-up approach on this, because a lot of the companies that are signing up are operating north and south of the border. Things will be a little bit complicated until we get them bedded in, but, if we can make it work, the benefits to Scotland will be significant.
As you know, cross-party groups have no actual power, but they have the power of ensuring that views are heard and publicised and that people understand what the issues are. Government ministers are generous with their time when it comes to attending CPGs, which can help them to understand the issues.
There are a lot of issues around CPGs that deal with various competing bodies—some of the bodies that we are talking about are competitors, and I suspect that Airbus and Lockheed Martin are not commercially joined at the hip. However, if those issues are, indeed, important, they can be worked out by the participants who are pushing for the CPG—and they are pushing for it, because they see a value in it. There are many common issues—around planning, regulation and policy—and we can help to focus minds and bring those issues together. The work that is done will be much more powerful if it can be done in tandem in Scotland and at Westminster.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
This cross-party group has already attracted a huge amount of attention and interest. MSPs become engaged in things for different reasons. It is partly about their own interests and partly about the interests of their constituents and so on. As far as the space CPG is concerned, the level of interest is probably the highest that I have seen in a long time. You talk about perhaps having time only to drop in on discussions that relate to your constituency. That is absolutely fine; indeed, it would be encouraged.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Cross-Party Group
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
Yes, I do. The industry members are taking on the secretarial and administration work. They are providing all the support, so the impact on my office will be relatively low. There will have to be input from the convener and, I hope, the active MSPs, but I am absolutely certain that I have the time. I would not have gone into this if I did not believe that I had the time to commit to the group. Frankly, given the nature of what we are looking at, it is a priority for Scotland and for the rest of the UK. It would be a serious deficiency—I almost said “space”—in the range of CPGs that we provide if this vital area was not covered.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
What I am not hearing from you is that the estimated figures that are produced annually can be compared with an actual figure that, somehow, is thrown out, even if it is historical.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
It would be interesting to see the estimates over several years to see whether they have swung back and forth or been fairly constant.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
I will come to Social Security Scotland in a second.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
Good morning, Auditor General. I am looking at fraud, which we have discussed before, specifically on the social security side. The benefit expenditure administered by the Department for Work and Pensions is £3.3 billion. According to the papers, you estimate that overpayments in Scotland could amount to £67.5 million. There are two questions on that. First, how do you calculate that out of thin air? Secondly, is that a normal level? Is that what would be expected?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
I have just one last question on this particular—
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
Okay. It relates to what I spoke about before. Is Social Security Scotland taking enough of the measures that it should take to assess levels of fraud and error in relation to the benefits that it directly administers?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 19 January 2023
Colin Beattie
In the early years, which is not that long ago, when Social Security Scotland was put in place, there was a relatively relaxed regime in respect of fraud. That was gradually tightened up as the volume and complexity of its work increased. Has the Scottish Government given you enough assurance around the assessment of fraud in this year’s accounts?
