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 772 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
We have heard a number of times that the scrutiny is not there, or that it varies in relation to the various commissioners. If the Scottish Government is setting up a commissioner, surely it is its responsibility, or in its interest, to ensure that such scrutiny is in place. Do you believe that that is happening at the moment, or is it a question of the Scottish Government setting up the commissioner and leaving it up to someone else to ensure that that role is scrutinised?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Does the Scottish Government undertake any evaluation of the commissioners—their outcomes, value for money and so on—including commissioners that have not been set up?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 4 June 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I meant on-going evaluation, after the commissioners have been set up.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
It is probably more concerning that, if you were to ask them to speak about the commissioners that their committee was responsible for, they might have the same difficulty.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Good morning. My first question is along similar lines. There has been a lot of talk about how Parliament functions and, indeed, the role of committees and how they function, too. Following on from what Patrick Harvie has been saying, do you think that, as part of any reform of Parliament, we should consider the committees having more teeth to hold the Government to account on some of the advocacy issues in a way they might not have been able to in the past?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
John Mason made the point that committees have a number of organisations that they have to hold to account. We have legislation and so on to run through. With some of the commissioners, there is sometimes a feeling that we need to get them in, or that we ought to get them in. That is concerning for scrutiny, because it feels as though it is of secondary importance, despite the huge and increasing amounts of money that are involved.
This is perhaps a difficult question, but surely the whole point of commissioners is to deliver a solution to a problem. They might not always deliver the solution and they might not always identify the right problem, but we are spending just over £18 million on them. Do you feel that we are getting value for that money? Do you think that we are getting value for money in the outcomes, or is that a difficult question to answer?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
That is helpful, David, but who would you suggest does that work?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Thank you. We seem to have avoided the controversial split—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scotland’s Commissioner Landscape
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Thank you—that was helpful.
I want to focus a little bit on some areas that have already been covered. Maggie Chapman mentioned the oversight and scrutiny role, and as far as governance is concerned, there is an assessor who keeps an eye on things. However, do you have any oversight of committees calling in commissioners? Are you able to say whether all the committees have called in and interviewed the commissioners, as they are supposed to as part of their remit?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I will take your word on that. I admit that I do not have a great sum of knowledge of pigeon racing. I take it that gambling is regulated. It is not just happening on the track.
