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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Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Good morning, and welcome to the fifth meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. We have received apologies from Colin Beattie, and I am delighted to see that Willie Coffey has joined us this morning via videolink.
I remind members and visitors that the Parliament’s social distancing rules apply, and it would be much appreciated if people entering, leaving or moving around the room could wear a face covering.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take items 4 and 5 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
I have a final question. In a sense, it is absolutely critical that we ask it. Clearly, there are wider implications for the whole public sector of the incident on 24 December 2020. In paragraph 34 of the report, you make it clear that it is important that all public sector bodies review the recommendations of the independent reviews that have been carried out on SEPA’s cyberattack, and that lessons are learned from what happened to SEPA. Will you talk us through your understanding of any steps that have been taken to date, either by the Scottish Government or by other public sector bodies, to make sure that lessons are learned and that the experience that SEPA has gone through is shared and acted on?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Auditor General, do you want to add anything to that?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. As you know, the committee retains a watching brief on information and communications technology projects, not least from the point of view of capital expenditure, but we will look at the security aspects as well. We all need to learn the lessons of the experience that SEPA has undergone. As is mentioned in the report, an organisation that is, by its nature, geared up to dealing with emergencies has had to deal with something that it might not have foreseen. The whole public sector needs to take broader lessons from that.
I thank Morag Campsie and Joanne Brown, who joined us online, and the Auditor General very much indeed for their evidence. It has been a useful session for us and we will shortly consider our next steps.
11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:41.Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
If they think that they have something additional to say and want to come in, I am keen to hear their views. They do not, so I will move on.
I was also particularly struck by the strand of the skills alignment strategy relating to the appointment of a skills alignment director, which was a senior position. I will look again at the chronology—outlined in exhibit 3—after the rather dysfunctional episode with the skills committee. In February 2018, recruitment began for a skills alignment director. There was then a gap from February until October that year, when an interim director was appointed. In March 2019, the interim skills alignment director’s term ended. There was then another gap until August that year, when the permanent position was filled.
I do not know whether Gordon Smail is in a position to explain that or whether the Auditor General wants to have a go. Efficiency and effectiveness are cornerstones of what we are looking at, but the recruitment process, which was seen to be a key strategic part of driving the agenda forward, seems to have been highly inefficient. On top of that, it was decided later, after the permanent skills alignment director had left, that the post was surplus to requirements. Could you explain that for us?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Can you confirm that the position was originally advertised and the recruitment process begun to appoint a permanent skills alignment director in February 2018 but the position was permanently filled only in August the following year? That is a huge gap between the intent to recruit somebody to that critical position at what I presume was a critical time and somebody finally being permanently recruited.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay. I observe that there are huge gaps from the date of the post originally being advertised and it finally being filled permanently. However, there are also gaps in the coverage provided by an interim director or interim directors—I do not know whether it was one person or more. There were large spaces of time when there was nobody in post carrying out that function, which was seen to be pivotal to the delivery of the Scottish Government strategy.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Willie Coffey has at least one question that follows up that line of inquiry.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
That is much appreciated. We will go straight to questions.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
We want to explore a couple of other areas before we finish this evidence-taking session. I was struck by the following heading in the report:
“Staff capacity constraints within the SFC created tensions between the agencies”,
and I note that those constraints in the Funding Council were highlighted to the skills alignment joint programme board in February 2020. Who is represented on the board, and was any action taken at the time? What is your view of a situation in which there is an atmosphere of tension between two agencies, both of which are supposed to be serving the public interest?
