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 1727 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. I have seen a lot of this kind of development in my previous career and there is a risk that the process can become the absolute. In that respect, I was just a bit surprised to note that the review of bringing in propriety and ethics is the last step in the process, because the risk then is that the ethical approach is applied from a deontological rather than a consequentialist perspective. What is your thinking about that being the last step in the chain and therefore how you can look back at it from a consequentialist, ethical basis—in other words, on an outcome basis, because this is all about the outcome and not just about the process?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
Obviously, the new process applies to former ministers, so what consideration have you given to how iterations of the process will be communicated to them and over what timescale, both in relation to former ministers and in relation to ministers who are currently in post—five years down the line, how will they be communicated with? I am not talking about the detail of the process, but they need to understand that they have a responsibility to be across the process at a given point in time and as it evolves. Where is your thinking on that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
I agree completely but, with regard to Lesley Fraser’s comments, if this is done under a UK civil service remit and approach, how will the different and more nuanced approach that we are taking here be reflected?
I also want to hear a bit more about the extent to which the data that is published will be quantitative or qualitative. After all, the biggest change in all of this will be to culture and behaviour, which are always the hardest things to change. In that respect, it is the qualitative insights that give that flavour. How will success be measured or reflected in the next version of the people survey? Are you planning to include additional Scottish Parliament elements to get a sense of that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, Deputy First Minister. It took me quite a long time to get into Edinburgh today, too, so I have every sympathy with you.
I want to ask about three broad areas. First, you have indicated that you are developing measures of success for the programme, but I want to get a little more flavour of how those measures will feed into later iterations of the people survey. Indeed, on the back of that, can you tell us what will be put in the public domain? In other words, my question is not how you but how we will test the measures of success, given our responsibility for scrutinising public administration issues.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
I will direct my question to Phil Prentice and Jennifer Hunter. We understand and have had a variety of evidence on the ways in which culture, leisure and tourism can support the restoration of town centres. I am interested in a word that was used by Scotland’s Towns Partnership in its submission, which talked about encouraging “vibrancy” and the use of culture in that regard. In my view, we are trying to get away from a kind of proposition in a box, because culture lives and breathes—it is creative and dynamic, and so on.
I would like to hear your insights into that. I am not in any way suggesting that that is easy, and I ask that you highlight some of the complexity that comes with that. Perhaps Jennifer would like to go first.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
Beyond the framework that has already been set out and a welcoming open-mindedness to the vibrancy that you described, are there specific policy initiatives that the Scottish Government could adopt that would be valuable, beyond what Jennifer Hunter has already mentioned?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
Phil, do you have anything to add in response to the original question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
I will move that on in my last question. With commercial properties, traditionally, somebody would have taken on the whole building, which would often be sublet for SMEs or microbusinesses. The model that you mention is similar, but for artisans. As you suggest, the return on investment is not as clear cut, which might rule out some of the bigger private guys.
Can we see something like that working to repurpose buildings? I appreciate that there is a lot of complexity around funding, if there is a public-private initiative, for example. Are there any final comments on that? Perhaps Anthea Coulter or Gemma Cruickshank would like to come in.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
I noticed in our documentation that you have consulted your members. Are you able to provide any insights off the back of that that would help to answer my question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Michelle Thomson
I do not know whether you all heard the earlier session, but I was exploring the multitude of ways in which culture, leisure activities and tourism can support the recovery of town centres. In particular, I am interested in the creative ways of doing that rather than the passive ways, which I described as putting a proposition in a box and into a former retail unit. That is still intrinsically passive, and I see the cultural element in particular as a main contributor to vibrancy.
I know that we have a lot to get through, but I would like to know whether there are any creative ideas that could translate into policy initiatives for the Government rather than for other agencies? I have to pick somebody to answer, so I will go with Danny.