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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 3314 contributions
|
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2021”
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Richard Leonard
The roll call of NHS boards that are in a very tricky financial position includes small boards such as NHS Orkney but also NHS Fife, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Borders, NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Highland, which I mentioned earlier. It is a substantial issue.
You mentioned that the funding formula was being reviewed, presumably to appreciate whether funds are being distributed as effectively, efficiently and equally as they ought to be. The committee’s understanding is that dates have not been set for the completion or implementation of the review. Are you any the wiser as to when there are likely to be changes, what those changes might be, what criteria are driving the review of the funding formula and, potentially, the allocation of funding between different territorial boards, as well as between different NHS tiers?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Richard Leonard
As I mentioned, Willie Coffey has a series of questions to ask.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. David Pirie will be with us for the rest of the session, but on audio only.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Wow—that is quite a stark conclusion to draw, isn’t it?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Richard Leonard
I am conscious of the fact that Roy Brannen is on the panel and that the Scottish Government’s role was mentioned in that question. Do you want to come in?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for Skills”
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay. Make your opening statement, director general.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for Skills”
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Whether they are errors or mistakes, they have been quite long-running errors and mistakes, have they not? That is why there are many aspects of the report that give the committee a good deal of concern.
I think that you said this earlier, Mr Griffin, but for the record could you confirm that you accept the recommendations and the action plan that are set out in the Audit Scotland report?
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Good morning and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. Before we begin, I remind the members, witnesses and staff who are present that social distancing rules apply in the committee room, and that they should wear face coverings when entering, leaving or moving around the room.
The first item on our agenda is a decision on whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Do members agreed to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for Skills”
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on the report, “Planning for Skills”, which Audit Scotland produced earlier this year. I welcome our witnesses, who are all from the Scottish Government. Joining us in the room are Joe Griffin, director general, education and justice, Helena Gray, director, fair work, employability and skills, and Adam Reid, deputy director for skills. Helen Webster, deputy director for reform in the directorate for advanced learning and science, joins us remotely. Willie Coffey, committee member, also joins us remotely.
Director general, before I begin, I will remind us why we are here and reflect on the evidence that was presented to us in the evidence session with the Auditor General for Scotland on 10 February. In his opening statement, the Auditor General said:
“we have found that slow progress has been made since 2017, with anticipated benefits not being realised. The Scottish Government has not provided the necessary leadership or oversight for joint working between SDS and the SFC, and there has been insufficient clarity on what it wanted to achieve and on what success would look like. We also found that progress by SDS and the SFC was impeded by lack of agreement between the two organisations about what skills alignment would involve.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 10 February 2022; c 2.]
This is a section 22 report, which is a serious report. Therefore, it is extremely disappointing that, only late yesterday afternoon, we received a very dense 30-page document, which, I understand, is the new framework agreement that is being put in place. Part of the story is about leadership and governance; for us, it is about democratic accountability.
I have to say that the very late arrival of an important document, which is entirely pertinent to this morning’s proceedings—a meeting that you have known about for quite some time—is, frankly, unacceptable. In my view, it compounds what is already quite a bad situation, and I hope that, this morning, we can address some of the fundamental criticisms that have been made over a failure that has gone on for five years.
Director general, I invite you to make an opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for Skills”
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you. I will begin by asking you a question that we asked the Auditor General, which is on the opportunity cost of the failure to get a co-ordinated skills alignment strategy together. Has the Scottish Government made any assessment to determine the costs to the public purse and the opportunity costs that have been lost through the failure to progress the skills alignment strategy?
