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 2934 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
Another challenge that you have raised, which is especially relevant in a time of fiscal scarcity, is the question of making new commitments against funding existing programmes. At the present time, given that money is likely to be tight for the next few years, should we be holding back on new developments and emphasising keeping existing things going? How do we get the balance right in that regard?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
We have covered a lot of ground already. I will go back to a general question and will start with Ms Congreve. Previous witnesses have suggested that the whole spending review is at too high a level and needs to be more detailed. What is your feeling on that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
Professor Heald, you covered that area. The framework document talks about priorities and objectives. Am I right in saying that you argue that those are not the same things?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
Turning to another point, you wrote:
“Getting the balance of expenditures right is a challenge for all governments”.
When you talk about getting it right, are you arguing that there is a right balance between, say, health and local government, or are those purely subjective tastes?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
But you would accept that, politically, it is very difficult not to do that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 8 March 2022
John Mason
As Ms Congreve suggested, the three objectives—if we can call them that—could rub against one another a bit. Do we need to set a priority among those three and say which is the most important out of child poverty, climate change or the economy and recovering from Covid?
11:00COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
John Mason
I would like to stick with Mr Smith on the issue of scrutiny. I am still trying to get my head round what should be in primary legislation and what should be in secondary legislation. Would you argue that, generally, the scrutiny of primary legislation is easier and better than that of secondary legislation?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
John Mason
To push you on that final point, if some powers are specific for Ebola and some for TB, should we not leave them until the situation arises and have them in the secondary legislation?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
John Mason
I declare that I am a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.
Professor McKenzie Skene mentioned earlier—I am not sure whether she is available to speak or not—that there is a working group and that a review of wider bankruptcy legislation is going on. Having been on finance and other committees in the past, I know that that is quite a complex area.
My main question is this: should the bill touch on bankruptcy or should we leave it for the review to come, in due course?
I am not hearing Professor McKenzie Skene—I am not sure that she is there.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
John Mason
We are spending longer on this piece of legislation as primary legislation, and your paper on post-legislative scrutiny is very critical of Parliaments generally—the Scottish Parliament is one that is guilty of not going back and looking at legislation enough. There is also the point about things being rushed in under the made affirmative procedure. It seems to me that there will be better legislation if we spend more time over it, think about it, and it is given a proper review, and that anything that is rushed in at the last minute will inevitably be weaker.
