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 2149 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Willie Coffey
Should there be a direct route that any tenant who has had such an experience can take? I know that they can go and see their local councillors and talk to their MSP, or even to their member of Parliament if they want to. Nevertheless, should there be a more direct route to the regulator in instances such as the one that I described?
A related question is whether social landlords, when they allocate a property or a tenancy, give the tenant a copy of what the standard should be, so that there is almost a contract, or an agreement, between the landlord and the tenant about the condition and quality of the house that they are being offered. That is not currently done. Do you think that it might be worth considering?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Willie Coffey
You have mentioned a few times the possibility of a regulator coming in to cover the private rented sector. Do you see that merging into a unified charter, or will we continue to have two charters and two sets of applicable standards?
You and I both know that the difference in quality between social housing and some private rented sector housing is stark. Often, I find tenants coming to me from the private rented sector who are fairly shocked by the quality of the housing that they are living in. There are no applicable standards that they can discern; there is no capital programme of upgrades and maintenance for them to look forward to. Can you say a wee bit about that and about how we might want to bring the two sectors a bit closer together?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Willie Coffey
I was a local councillor for many years, before and during my time in Parliament, and, over the years, I have heard of numerous examples of bad experiences. Graeme Dey highlighted one example just now, and I heard about another only a couple of weeks ago—I stress that I am not talking about East Ayrshire. A person was allocated a house in which the heaters were not working—they were hanging off the walls—and there was no hot water in the house. The doors were also hanging off and the carpet was stained. How on earth do tenants get that experience through to the regulator? How do we protect tenants from that kind of performance?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Willie Coffey
That is very helpful.
When we are talking about charters, standards and so on, should we think about extending the gaze or reach of those things beyond just the house that a person lives in? What about the immediate environment where people live, which I often also get complaints about? Should people have a right to expect a certain quality in the immediate environment surrounding where they live, not just the house and its maintenance and services within the building where they live? What are your thoughts on that? Should we be thinking more long term about extending this to achieve a greater standard and quality that goes wider than the particular house that a tenant lives in?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Scottish Social Housing Charter
Meeting date: 1 March 2022
Willie Coffey
Many thanks for that, Patrick.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Willie Coffey
My question is on the European structural and investment funds issue that is also covered in the Auditor General’s report. We know that the UK Government committed to replacing those funds, which came from the European Union, and that an estimated £183 million a year is coming to Scotland.
First, has that sum been confirmed yet? Secondly, and importantly for the committee, what is to be the role of the committee, the Scottish Parliament and Audit Scotland in scrutinising that spend and accounting for it in Scotland? We did that previously but, as far as I know, none of us is aware of where the scrutiny function will lie for that funding. It might fall under the shared prosperity or levelling up funds and so on, but we do not know yet. We do not even know whether the Scottish Parliament will have the same role in scrutinising the spend that we had previously. I would be obliged if you could clarify any of that for the committee.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Canals”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Willie Coffey
The transition of Scottish Canals from a public body to an NDPB seems to have brought about many or most of the issues. Paragraph 10 of the report says that the decision to change the status from public body to NDPB resulted from a review by the Office for National Statistics. Did no one think that that would put a bit of a millstone around the neck of Scottish Canals? Joanne Brown described the substantial change in requirements. Being one type of body or the other makes a substantial difference to how the assets are accounted for. Did nobody think about that before the decision was made about changing the organisation’s status?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Willie Coffey
We know that there are about 300 jobs linked directly to the airport and about 1,400 spin-off jobs associated with the wider Ayrshire economy. We know that the airport is pivotal to the Ayrshire local authorities in terms of taking the Ayrshire Growth Deal forward and in relation to their hopes and aspirations for the possible spaceport in Ayrshire.
I will just ask you again—and, perhaps, your officials, who have been in post for longer than you have, Mr Marks—had the Scottish Government not made that investment, would the airport still be functioning?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Willie Coffey
It is hugely important for us in Ayrshire, but from a financial perspective, the committee and the Auditor General are asking about the financial implications of longer-term support, in the absence of a buyer. Can you say anything about progress in that regard?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Willie Coffey
Is the Scottish Government making it clear to our UK Government colleagues that it is our wish that that scrutiny function remains in Scotland, where it previously was?
