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 1489 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 12 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
In fairness, it might be; the issue might be my ignorance. If we have the data, we can start to interrogate what the impact could be, and how that plays into the real economy, which is why I am asking.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
In part, you have answered one of my follow-up questions about the external assessment. You mentioned your software provider but, again, its view is only as good as its view of the world, and part of the challenge is the exponential speed of change. Would you consider consulting wider expertise? Do you have that in your sights?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
You have led me on to another issue, perhaps inadvertently. I want to ask you about equalities. Like the convener, I have read through your corporate governance report and I know that equalities is an area that you are required to be cognisant of. However, of the seven people on your board, I note that one is a woman and six are men. I can see that your senior management team is equally split. I also did a wee search on the use of the word “woman” in your corporate governance report, but I was not able to find any mention of it.
You will know that we generally have a significant issue with lack of representation of women in financial services. What are your plans to make the board more equitable? What is the split on your risk and audit committee, which is a classic committee that normally never has an equitable split?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Alas, you have proved my theory correct.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you very much.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Have I got time for one last question, convener?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
He is just trying to get his own back. My question is about shared services. As you know, this is the Finance and Public Administration Committee, and the utilisation of shared services is something that I greatly value. We could be doing considerably more on that and I notice that you have it on your human resources function. I am just not clear about the history. Was that set up at the outset, or has it evolved relatively recently? How is it working out for you? It is just a general question.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. To pick up on a point that the convener made, I never have any difficulty finding the stats, because I simply search for the key item on my laptop. Such are the joys of digital technology, convener.
I want to pick up on cybersecurity and, in general, ask about your assessment of the challenges and opportunities brought about by artificial intelligence. One of the challenges is that, in general terms, none of us knows. Specifically, I would make the case that the public sector is not at the cutting edge. What assessment have you made of the advent of AI, and particularly the sensitivities around data that you have outlined? What challenges do you see, how are you addressing them and what are the opportunities?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you very much for that. You have identified the concerns with the process that will, thankfully, be picked up and we will carry on progressing it.
Perhaps I should have tagged my final question in with my first one. It is about where you are delegating responsibility. Although you remain accountable, responsibility lies elsewhere, such as with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Given what you outline in terms of protecting the integrity of your data and so on, how are you monitoring the risks of delegation? Will you talk me through that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Michelle Thomson
To be honest, I would like to hear you say that you have definitive plans to get to an equitable split the next time that you have two people stepping down. The problem with the perception of meritocracy is that if women never get the chance, they never get the chance to demonstrate merit. We have had that cyclical problem for a long time and it is heavily pronounced in financial services. I am interested to know a bit more about your specific plans. Given where we are, what target do you aim to reach in two years’ time? Do you have a target?
