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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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 28 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Given that we are talking about budgets and that everything, at the end of the day, comes back to money, has the money that has been put up for gender equality been well spent?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
It is a bit alarming that the SFC’s funding has gone up during the period that we are looking at, from 75 per cent in 2017-18 to 79 per cent now. That was never intended. It was intended that colleges should generate some of their own income—and they do, but not at the level that was anticipated prior to Covid.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Let us look again at exhibit 1, which shows that the SFC is forecasting the adjusted operating position of colleges. It shows a deficit of £5.6 million in 2021-22 and a projected deficit in 2022-23; the figure then moves into surplus in 2023-24. That seems positive, but how realistic is it? Is that achievable?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Back in 2014, when ALFs were formed—we were probably optimistic in those days—the theory was that commercial income would be parked in them and drawn down against specific contracts as time went on. There does not seem to be much evidence that that has been a terribly successful strategy. It seems to me—but please confirm this or otherwise—that ALFs are a dying breed and that, as the funding that they received in 2014 dies, there will be no support for the colleges.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Why is it that two thirds of the money in ALFs relate to the three Glasgow colleges? Is that just historical or is there something behind it? Why are they more successful?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
I have a final area to cover. Staff costs are shown as 71 per cent of the total expenditure in 2020-21. That is high, but it is, of course, very much a staff-driven environment. People have to be able to present courses and so on. Therefore, although 71 per cent is high compared with the figures in other sectors, it is possibly justified. However, that means that there is very limited manoeuvrability to save money elsewhere. Staff numbers fell by 1.2 per cent in 2020-21. How sustainable are those staff numbers, given the financial pressures that colleges face? Colleges really have only staff numbers to play with to save money.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
We have talked about shared resources for as long as I remember, but I am not sure about the extent to which that has been successful. Are you aware of any examples of colleges that have found alternative ways to reduce costs or increase income? Is there a success story out there that could lead other colleges?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Previously, the financial situation among colleges varied widely. There were particular issues around the Highland ones and some of the Glasgow ones. Does that situation prevail, without much change? In other words, if we looked at 2018-19 and backwards, and looked at the position now, would we see the same pattern with the same colleges, or has there been any significant improvement for any of them?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Auditor General, the question of sustainability in the college sector goes back a long way. There have been various iterations of it over the years, particularly since 2014. There has been much discussion of Covid-related funding, which masks some of the financial problems. Are you able to quantify what the impact has been? I am trying to get to the underlying financial situation, as opposed to the impact of the Covid funding.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Colin Beattie
Good morning. A lot has been made of the possible relationship between Mr McColl and the Government because of his alleged political views. To what extent are contractors’ political views taken into account when allocating contracts?
