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 3298 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much for the opening statement. I have a couple of questions to ask, before I invite questions from other members of the committee.
It is worth recapping where things were back in 2018-19. The conclusions of the 2018-19 report spoke about
“ineffective leadership, inadequate workforce planning, a lack of clarity over roles and responsibilities and poor relationships and organisational culture”,
which existed to such an extent that, in giving evidence to the Public Audit Committee’s predecessor committee, the auditor said:
“In terms of the findings and recommendations, I cannot think of another report that has raised such serious issues during my time in this role.”—[Official Report, Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, 16 January 2020; c 21.]
That is a pretty damning indictment of how things were.
When we turn to the report that has just been published, we see that there appears to have been a considerable turnaround. My first question is this: what has been the catalyst for such a transformative difference in the organisation?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Openness and transparency were previously identified as issues back in 2018-19, so that is a continuing area of interest for us.
My final question goes back to the 72 actions that came out of the recommendations, which the Auditor General mentioned. Of the 72, 71 have been implemented. However, the nature of the beast that is the Public Audit Committee being what it is, I want to ask about the 72nd action, which has not so far been implemented. Can someone explain why there has been a hold-up with it? Is it simply a matter of timing; is it contingent on other issues? What is the reason? I ask so that we have a better understanding of the outstanding action.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
We have more questions on engagement, which will come up later in the evidence session. Colin Beattie has questions about board scrutiny.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
We want to further interrogate the board’s financial position in terms of not only its management but its sustainability.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
There is mention in the report of an “improvement plan steering group”. Is the expectation that it will continue for some time or is it also a time-limited part of the organisation’s work? I invite Pat to reply. We can then widen the question out, if other people have comments.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thanks, Craig. Pat, it would be useful if we could get that information, which would aid us in our consideration of the report.
Before I move on, I have something else to raise in this area. The Auditor General mentioned exhibit 1—the organisational chart—as something for us to have a look at. Mention has been made of the important additional resource that has now been put into the organisation through the appointment of a head of communications and promotions. When I look at the organisational chart, however, I see a chief executive, below which is a director of Gaelic education, a director of language planning and community developments, and a head of finance and corporate services. I do not see a head of communications and promotions. Are they not at the same level? Are they not part of that more senior executive management team?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
It might be worth giving some reflection to that.
Sharon Dowey has a number of questions on roles and responsibilities stemming from the previous report and the latest report.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Bòrd na Gàidhlig”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Willie Coffey has some questions that explore some of those areas further, in the context of openness and transparency. Over to you, Willie.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
I am bound to reflect on the evidence that there has been a lot of controversy in the Highlands about the centralisation of services. So, when Joanne Brown speaks about service redesign, the question that many people in the Highlands will ask is, to what extent is that clinically led and to what extent is that financially led? It may not be for the Auditor General to offer commentary on that, but any reflections that you or Joanne can make would be useful in getting the inside track on what is pushing those changes.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS Highland”
Meeting date: 13 January 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much—that is very useful. There is continuing public interest in the costs of the operation and administration of the healing process, and in the balance between that and the pay-outs themselves.
I have a final point that I want to ask about. Referring to the board risk assurance framework, the report states that
“further work is required to review and redefine some of the risks and the escalation process within the BRAF”.
Could you tell us a little bit more about what further work is required on that? I do not know whether that is for Joanne Brown or Stephen Boyle.
