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 1690 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Administration in the Scottish Government
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have a couple of quick questions off the back of what you have said. You talked about the speed of change, which everyone recognises is accelerating. How well equipped is the civil service, since you joined it, to deal with that speed of change, which ain’t going to stop any time soon, as we all know?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Administration in the Scottish Government
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
You mentioned earlier, and I read in the stats, that more than 55 per cent of your employees are female, which is great. You also said that there is a very healthy gender balance at all levels. Do you have, or could you supply the committee with, a breakdown at all levels? I am particularly interested in the most senior levels.
I will make one last wee point. A wellbeing economy, which has a gendered lens as a focus, is, of course, a priority of the Scottish Government. I am aware of the time. You may want to give us some more flavour of how you are able to apply that, because it is obviously about so much more than simply the percentage of the gender split. We could start to look at procurement and so on. It depends on time, convener.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I am sorry—I have not been clear. I should have said quangos or third sector groups.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Permanent secretary, I will give you the opportunity to answer. During the decision-making process, how do you guard against the risk of policy capture?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
But do you agree that it could represent a risk to decision making? If an organisation is receiving its funding from the Scottish Government, there is a risk that it will tell the Government what it wants to hear because the organisation fears for its funding line. Indeed, we had confirmation a couple of weeks ago from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations that that can happen.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 16 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have got that point. You correctly say that you will understand from a funding line where that represents a liability, but I am trying to explore where that represents a risk to quality decision making. How do you examine and assess that risk up front and therefore, critically, guard against policy capture?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
We are talking specifically about investing in renewables.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
You are absolutely—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. I have a slight feeling of “plus ça change ... ” as I address four men on my favourite theme of how we alleviate some of the issues around women’s representation in the economy. I am sure that none of you will be surprised by that.
With regard to narrowing the gender pay gap, which you mentioned earlier, I have seen that being promoted, but there is so much—I repeat, so much—more that we have to do to address the systemic issues in our economy. In a chamber debate last week, I remarked that wellbeing in particular must be seen through a gendered lens; indeed, that is utterly fundamental. If I am being completely honest, I have to say that I feel as though we are, if anything, moving backwards instead of forwards. I say that, bearing in mind the fact that my colleague Ms Hyslop made sure that a women’s business centre was inserted into the Government’s priorities with a spend of around, as I recall, £50 million; that was incorporated into what we looked at in relation to the Ana Stewart review.
My first question is this: can you give me more of a flavour of what specifically you are looking at in the Ana Stewart review? When will you be able to come back with recommendations that you are able to support?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish Government Policy Priorities (Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy)
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
One area of Ana Stewart’s report that I want to emphasise is encapsulated in recommendation 30, on the collection of data. At the moment, we do not have the data sets that would enable us to gather the data that we need, to measure it and to use it to effect change. Moreover, we do not apply any conditionality to public sector funding, whether it relates to women’s representation or equalities matters in general—which I accept is a wide area. Will you give an indication of how open minded you are to at least taking—and I must emphasise this—the first step? We cannot measure and improve our data if we do not even collect it. That is why, in my opinion, we are at a pretty low marker. Are you willing to commit today to considering that as a minimum?
Incidentally, I had an undertaking on that from the former Deputy First Minister. That did not come to pass either, so I really have to push you on this.
