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
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Item 3 is the continuation of our evidence session with the Auditor General and his team on the report into new vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides. We are pleased to welcome back the Auditor General, who is joined again by Angela Canning and Antony Clark. I thank them for coming back so quickly to help us keep the momentum of our scrutiny going.
Auditor General, you gave an opening statement last week and I will not ask you to repeat that. With your forbearance, I will move straight to questions.
Rhoda Grant is also joining us again remotely. If she wants to come in, she should indicate that via the chat function and we will attempt to bring her in.
I will begin by recapping a couple of areas from last week and seeking a bit more clarity. In the evidence that you gave last week, Auditor General, you said that we
“do not know on what basis”
ministers agreed to take the risk of placing the order for vessels 801 and 801 with Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd on the basis of a non-standard contract. You said that
“there is no documentary evidence of how those risks were considered or how it was intended that they would be managed during the running of the contract”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 21 April 2022; c 28, 27.]
I ask you to reflect on something that the First Minister said to Parliament on 24 March. When asked about documentary evidence, she said:
“Many of the documents that relate to the decision have been in the public domain for some time. They clearly narrate the issue of the lack of a full-refund guarantee. They also clearly narrate the mitigations that were put in place to reduce that risk.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2022; c 11.]
Please give your comments on the view expressed by the First Minister.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
I was going to turn to that next.
In the light of the questioning of the First Minister last Friday, a Scottish Government official was reported to have said:
“A thorough search has been conducted and the ... documentation cannot be located.”
On Tuesday, that was confirmed in the Parliament by the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, who said that, following “a thorough search”, the documentation could not be located.
I turn to section 24 of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000, which, I am reminded, is headed
“Access to documents and information”.
The 2000 act is fairly clear that, for a section 23 report such as this one, the examiner from Audit Scotland is entitled under section 24(3)(a)
“to ... have access at all reasonable times to any document in the possession, or under the control, of the body or office-holder in question which the examiner may reasonably require”.
It appears that that document does not exist. However, the 2000 act goes on to say under section 24(3)(b) that the examiner is entitled
“to ... require from any person holding, or accountable for, any such document any assistance, information or explanation which the examiner reasonably thinks necessary”.
Does that cover information and explanation as to why documents do not exist?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay, Mr Clark, I will leave the redresses to you or the Auditor General. Did you get an explanation as to why that documentary evidence did not exist?
10:00Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
That brings us to the end of the time that we have this morning. Once again, Auditor General, I thank you for your willingness to answer the wide range of questions that we have put to you. I also thank the team that has joined you. We very much appreciate the input of Antony Clark and Angela Canning, which has been illuminating.
We will have to consider what our next steps are. You have given us some suggestions on where it might be useful for us to look further. We will reflect on those and, as a committee, we will reach our own conclusions on our next steps. I thank you again for your evidence.
We now move into private session.
11:16 Meeting continued in private until 11:53.Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay, so we do not know whether the Government is searching for something that exists.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Rhoda, do you have any further questions?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
That brings the evidence session to a close. I thank Boyd Robertson for his opening statement, which was very useful in framing our session. I thank David Garden, director of finance, for his input, which has been valuable, and I particularly thank Pam Dudek, the chief executive, who has fully, comprehensively and candidly answered the questions that we put to her.
We will suspend briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
09:50 Meeting suspended.09:52 On resuming—
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
You mentioned the turnaround director. Do you, as Auditor General, have a view on the contractual arrangements and terms of engagement of the turnaround director? I do not think that that is included in your report, but I wondered whether you have had a chance to reflect on it.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
That might be a line of inquiry that we will pursue elsewhere. Thank you. I now invite Craig Hoy to ask a series of questions.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 28 April 2022
Richard Leonard
We have heard this morning about how people have applied to court to get settlements in disputes about payments, we have heard about mediation mechanisms being considered and then abandoned, and we are looking at a new environment in which there is a cost-plus arrangement. If you read the evidence that Jim McColl submitted to the committee, you find that a lot of it is saying that we are looking at the situation through the wrong end of the telescope, that unfair demands were placed on Ferguson Marine, and that that is why the costs and delays ended up where they did. That is all because of CMAL, which is now the technical consultant in an environment in which there is a cost-plus arrangement. In looking out for the public’s money, how do we know that that is not a blank cheque for CMAL to get the highest specification and technical corrections that will cost an inordinate amount of money on which there is no limit?
