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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1482 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. I look forward to hearing more about that as part of the reflection process.
I have a slightly different question, which picks up on some of the threads that the convener pursued. I cannot imagine that many members of the public are watching these proceedings, but I am sure that members of various bodies will be doing so. I do not think that the challenges and complexities that exist in aligning budgetary spend with outcomes are generally understood. It is a highly complex and difficult process.
Could you give us a flavour of those areas in which you think that that is difficult to do in practical terms? An example that is often cited is our use—globally, I mean—of the crude measurement, thus far, of GDP, as opposed to wellbeing indices. In reflecting on that at some point in the future, might the Scottish Government look to adopt more forcefully some of the newer, softer measures around wellbeing that have emerged recently, rather than looking only at hard measures such as GDP? I realise that that is a complex question, but I would like to hear your reflections on it.
10:00Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
Bryan McGrath, what is your approach on women in place and women in their place in terms of their making a full contribution?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
Without my leading you, it sounds like you are almost promising me that you will reflect on that as you develop your women’s strategy.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
That probably leads on to my next question. When Carolyn Currie from Women’s Enterprise Scotland was before us, she made an interesting comment about what constitutes a microbusiness based on our traditional measures. She mentioned that she is aware of a number of women-led businesses that are, in essence, microbusinesses but that have significant turnover. It is very often the case that agencies will not pick up such businesses because there is a threshold for support in relation to employee numbers. Of course, where their turnover is significant, they are typically using e-commerce as a mechanism to trade, which is something else that we want to encourage.
Are you aware of that? Have you reflected how—almost back to front—e-commerce can skew the number of employees against turnover? That breaks the usual measures that we might choose to adopt? Have you considered that in terms of women-led businesses specifically?
10:30Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
That is a very honest answer.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
I am mindful of what Bryan McGrath has been emphasising. I want to ask a couple of questions about women in enterprise in the concept of place, as well as in their place—that is, as thriving, active entrepreneurs in which an equitable number of women and men in businesses contribute. Do you have a strategy for women in enterprise in your organisation? Do you routinely disaggregate data by women? How do you measure that? Do you publish that strategy and data? I am after a bit of flavour on that. If you do not have a strategy, just tell me. Derek Shaw is smiling—you can go first.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
Do you have a specific strategy for women, or is consideration and cognisance of women part of your overarching strategy?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
In that case, are you saying that it can be argued that proxy measures are, if they are applied consistently across the board, better than nothing at all? I do not want to put words in your mouth, but that is what I took from what you were saying.
11:30Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
I agree with what you said about the human rights element, which will give a different perspective that should be enlightening. My question is, to what extent is the NPF already not gender blind, but fully aware at every step and every measure. I appreciate that this is a huge question to ask, but in general terms, what assessment—red, amber or green—would you give it?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2022
Michelle Thomson
It is a very interesting area but I will move on, as it is quite a big area, too.
This is my final question. In this evidence session and in others, we have touched on the lack of linkage to budget planning. My observation is that the means of measuring wellbeing in economic terms are still relatively underdeveloped—academics such as Rutger Hoekstra, the author of “Replacing GDP by 2030”, are still puzzling over that. Is the real issue the fact that our adherence to gross domestic product—because it gives firmer measures—makes it difficult to measure wellbeing and link it to economic activity, and therefore to the budget? Is that the real challenge, which we have to accept is difficult and have to keep working on?