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 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. I would concur with Colin Beattie on that final point.
That is the end of the questions that we have on the consolidated accounts. Thank you, Auditor General, for once again giving us the benefit of your wisdom and analysis. I also thank Michael Oliphant and Helen Russell, who joined us online.
We have a changeover of witnesses now, so I will suspend the meeting until that takes place.
10:05 Meeting suspended.10:06 On resuming—
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you—that is very helpful.
Another long-standing request—or demand—of Audit Scotland has been for the accounts of the whole of the public sector to be published. To move from one subject to the other, would the publication of the accounts of the whole of the public sector also allow for better scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s investments in private companies?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
In general, but also with particular reference to this arrangement, is there enough transparency and openness about the financial arrangements that have been entered into? I presume that that is also part of your inquiry into what is going on at Port Glasgow.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
We will continue on the theme of workforce issues.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
I want to finish the session with a few short questions. You have catalogued the challenges that the organisation has faced as a result of staff training issues and staff vacancy issues. Arguably, there continue to be significant workload burdens on the staff. There are also issues with funding, and approaches have been made to the corporate body to increase funding. At the same time, the audit report recommends that important pieces of work be carried out, which I presume would be quite substantive, such as the drafting of a full investigations manual. There is also a proposal to bring in an external investigator in order to address some of the deficiencies in the organisation.
In the light of all that, do you think that that will be achievable?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland”
Meeting date: 27 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Earlier, Colin Beattie asked you about where the negotiations between the commissioner’s office and the corporate body on the release of more resources lie. I think that you said that that was still the subject of negotiation. Is that correct?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you, Sharon.
I conclude the session by thanking the witnesses—Paul Lowe, Linda Sinclair, Peter Whitehouse and Anne Slater—for joining us. I do not think that we heard from Anne Slater, but she has been on hand to give evidence.
Reflecting on what Paul Lowe said at the beginning, we understand that NRS is not the Office for National Statistics, but it is the body that is charged with delivering the census in Scotland. We are concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of that process. It is exactly two months to the day until census day on 20 March, and the committee may well invite the witnesses back after the census later in the year—it will be for the committee to decide that—to reflect on how it went and any broader lessons that can be learned, as well as to consider the future.
Paul Lowe said that 10 years is a long time. I am not sure whether the next census will be in 10 years’ time or nine years’ time. We have not touched on that question, but I am sure that we can return to it.
I reiterate that we welcome your commitment to give us a copy of the options appraisal. If any other aspects of the evidence that you have given this morning would be supported well by any written submissions, the committee would welcome that. Thank you for your time and your willingness to answer the questions that we have put.
I suspend the meeting while we change witnesses.
10:11 Meeting suspended.10:14 On resuming—
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Mr Lowe has frozen. I do not know whether we are able to—
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Yes, that is helpful. Nevertheless, I go back to the fact of the matter, which is that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the census went ahead in March 2021 and, as I read it, there was a 97 per cent participation rate. You made the point that Scotland had a different status at various points in the month of March 2021. That is clearly a factor but, notwithstanding that, we have been told that one reason why the ONS and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency were able to go ahead was that they had access to other sources of administrative data, which I presume would be there for them to rely on to add texture to the returns from census day. Can you explain why NRS did not have access to those same sources of administrative data?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 20 January 2022
Richard Leonard
We will return to the issue of the digital dimension, which Mr Lowe raised in his answers to Craig Hoy’s questions. I will come to Willie Coffey to ask questions on that. However, before that, I will bring in Colin Beattie to continue on the theme of the financial implications of the delay to the census.
