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 2295 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Bob Doris
My question is inspired by your question, convener, about potential financial burdens on the Land Commission and compromising other areas of what it does. Right now, in relation to those with the broadest shoulders paying, what about the largest landowners or large management companies? Gresham House, for example, owned no land in Scotland in 2012 and currently has 53,000 hectares. We see a direction of travel there. Is there any levy on those largest landowners or land management companies in relation to regulatory functions and is there an opportunity to do that in a proportionate and responsible way?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
Because of time constraints, I will perhaps leave that hanging.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
That is very helpful. I am sure that the committee would welcome being kept updated if there is any detrimental impact. It is clear that the organisation is changing to adapt to additional pressures and financial realities.
Let us look at the five regulatory priorities that have been set by OSCR for 2024 through to 2026. They look pretty clear—dare I say obvious?—in some respects. How were they determined? What progress has been made on the priorities that you have set since their introduction?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
I will ask a final question. [Interruption.] I do not think that I have had much time at all, convener, but I will be brief.
Do senior officers in OSCR analyse the data and make recommendations to the chair and the board on the priorities that are set, or do they give the chair and board options? I am trying to gather how dynamic and vibrant the board is at holding senior management to account in the priorities that it sets.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
The reason why I asked is that OSCR is one of the regulators of housing associations. When I meet housing association chairs and board members, I always ask them whether they challenge the senior management of those associations in a positive way. That is a constructive aspect. Thank you for putting that on the record.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
Good morning. I am not sure whether I have to declare this but, for transparency, I say that I am a trustee of a small charity called Spirit of Springburn. I have no financial gain from that. My interest is registered under the voluntary category, and I declare it at this point.
Clearly, a significant amount of work will be needed to implement the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023, and I suppose that that means that there is no business as usual—things have to change and there is an impact on resource. Will one of you give an example of how you have had to change from business as usual to doing something different that will allow you to implement the 2023 act?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
Meeting date: 6 June 2024
Bob Doris
That is a helpful and specific example of the impact. I have a follow-up question. What has been the impact on casework? I imagine that the casework teams are left to deal with the same number—or perhaps a greater number—of inquiries with fewer staff.
Before you answer that—because we are time sensitive today—if there are other examples of where there has been an impact, will you put those on the record as well? I will move on to my next question at that point.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful, cabinet secretary.
I want to move on to the new train procurement programme and the plans to decarbonise the network by 2035. Before I do so, I declare an interest. I am delighted to say that Gibson’s Engineering Ltd has bought the previously closed Caley rail works at St Rollox, in my constituency. It hopes to employ thousands of workers there in the years ahead, should it be successful in growing the business. I have every confidence that it can do so.
My questions are in relation to procurement—I do not wish to ask questions about any individual company that is part of any process—but I wanted to put that on the record for transparency purposes. My understanding is that the new train procurement programme was put on the Public Contracts Scotland website in 2022, looking for expressions of interest. The ambition is to have 675 new carriages, with 65 per cent of the fleet being replaced.
What I am not sure about is how our committee can track—no pun intended, cabinet secretary—against benchmarks along the way to see where the Scottish Government is in that process, so that we can carry out our scrutiny role.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful, cabinet secretary. I acknowledge that ScotRail is a well-performing and well-run railway, but clearly we still want to drive improvements where we can. The committee would welcome correspondence from you, following that meeting, to update us on what work is being done to address the matters that you have just put on the record. That would be quite helpful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Transport Policies and Performance
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Bob Doris
There is no question for you to answer, cabinet secretary; I am simply asking you to do something. Mr Simpson mentioned ticketing and the fact that people do not always get the split fare pricing that allows them to get the best deal for tickets. Trainline takes less than a minute to use, and it allows you to add on discount cards. For example, I have a Club 50 railcard, because I am now over 50, which enables me to get a significant discount on rail travel.
When you have those discussions with ScotRail, will you make sure that the technology that it uses—the machines in the stations and so on—allows travellers to access, and promotes, the various discount cards that are available for ScotRail? We are trying to increase revenue, and that is a good way of getting more people to travel.
