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 1619 contributions
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Criminal Justice Committee
Correspondence
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Jamie Greene
I will just add that, if the process is revised, it is unclear who the ultimate arbiter would be or what appeals process would be in place if, for example, organisers of such events felt that a decision had been made wrongly at local level. If there is no national consistency, how would that be presented at local level? Those issues need to be cleared up.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2023-24
Meeting date: 9 November 2022
Jamie Greene
Do you think that the Government would do that even if a better service was being run more cheaply?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
I want to follow on from my previous line of questioning around scenario planning. Is there any concern from the Prison Service that, due to the events of the past two and a half years, during which you admit that the rehabilitation service that you would like to have provided has been lacking, coupled with the real potential for reverting to a Covid-like clamp down on what happens in prison, that might create a pressure pot leading to increased violence in prisons, further attacks on staff or even the potential for rioting?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
Last week, we heard quite clearly from other justice partners that a flat cash settlement or a real-terms cut in your budget would equate either to a reduction in head count or to a pay freeze. It is as simple a choice as that. In your scenario, which of those is most likely, given your commitment to a pay award that is above the public sector pay policy? What are the effects of any potential pay freeze or a reduction in staff if either of those scenarios play out?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
What sort of action?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
I will start by looking at some of the budgetary pressures and the scenario planning that you have done. You are quite clear in your submission that
“Due to the nature of our functions there is no or at most, very limited, opportunity to the scaling back of our operations without significant risk to health and welfare support ... reputational damage, the loss of”
services
“and risk to operational stability across the estate.”
Will you elaborate on what you mean by that?
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
To clarify your projections—my colleague Russell Findlay covered some of this—you modelled three scenarios: realistic, optimistic and pessimistic. Initially, I had the impression that you had modelled on the basis of a realistic outcome, but the commentary in your submission tends to lean more towards a pessimistic outcome. Where do you sit on that scale at the moment? Whether your outlook is realistic, optimistic or pessimistic, there is still a funding gap in each scenario.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
I am sure that that will be noted by the Government and that you will make your case diligently.
My final point is on an important general theme. A lot of the work that the committee does is centred on outcomes for the general public, including victims of crime. Notwithstanding the evidence that we took last week, what I take from your written submissions is the warning about the risk to the victim-centred approach that your organisations currently take. Any loss of skills or expertise or staffing resource would put massive pressure on that and would perhaps undermine much of the effort that you are making to move towards a more trauma-informed practice of working.
What reassurance can you give the public that, even though you are staring down the barrel of difficult budgets over the next few years, should it transpire that you experience real-terms cuts, victims will still remain at the heart of the justice system, no matter what happens? I am sure that many people who are watching this session will be worried and concerned about the direction of travel.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
I appreciate that, in your submission, you mentioned energy and food costs, but those are 4 per cent and 2 per cent of your overall budget, whereas pay is 60 per cent of your budget and therefore the lion’s share of your costs. You say that
“a flat cash position ... would require restraint on pay increases and a review of the current employee operating model.”
You suggested that neither a reduction in staff nor a pay freeze can take place, but it sounds like both would have to take place. I still do not understand what a flat cash settlement would mean for pay and staffing numbers.
Criminal Justice Committee
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jamie Greene
It sounds as though you might not have any choice, though. You get what you get with finances for resource budgets, so it will be one or the other, will it not?
