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: 6 June 2023
Michelle Thomson
So any cut in the block grant has a potentially significant impact.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 6 June 2023
Michelle Thomson
Is that approach even more prevalent in Scotland due to the tendency to focus on revenue because of the fixed budget?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I want to go back to cover one idea with David Page before we move on to look at some general themes.
Mr Page, you did not mention one area that is habitually difficult when making transformational change at scale: the merging of different cultures. People often carry out due diligence on legal or financial matters but forget about culture. You were, in essence, bringing lots of different cultures together. How did you actively manage that and what have been the outcomes?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have a final wee question off the back of that. You pointed out that change was forced on you by the legislation. Had it not been, is there any way on God’s earth that all the different forces would have volunteered to come together?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
It is just a quick question, because Keith Brown has opened up a great thread. We hear that there is a lot of good stuff going on, and a shared sense of what needs to be done. However, I want somebody to answer this question. What is the role of Government in enabling data harvest and capture—within limitations, as has been set out—given that AI will be fundamental to public sector reform? What should Government’s role be, given the challenges around scale that Keith Brown pointed out in his opening question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I apologise, Sue. That is why I was wondering why you were passing that question to David Eiser.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. What do you think is the first thing that I noticed about you when you first came into the room this morning?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Yes, you are all men. Off the back of that, I thought that I would just check how representative the organisation is. We can see that 20 per cent of the people here today are women—Susan Bomphray is online and has not had a chance to speak yet. I looked at the board, and I see that there is 25 per cent representation by women. Then I looked at the membership of the committees and saw that the risk and audit committee, which is the most active one, is 70 per cent men. Then I searched your strategy for the terms “sex”, “gender”, “women” and so on, and there was no mention of them. I also looked at your work plan, which has three mentions in passing. So my question is: are you completely or just mostly gender blind?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I thought that you were director of policy, Susan. I see that your title on screen is “director of policy”.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
There is certainly much further to go.
Before I move on to my main area of questioning, I want to ask about your research—David Eiser may be able to come in on this. What consideration have you given thus far to how specifically your research in whatever area you are focusing on will make sure that it pulls in the unique insights of women? I take it that you are routinely disaggregating your data set by gender. I see nodding; it is heartening to know that you are doing that as a matter of routine.
I have a few questions about how your approach differs for small businesses, to which, I know, you offer a service. In some respects, the issues that are experienced by small business owners are similar to those experienced by other consumers. We have already touched on some of those today. What is more interesting is where small business owners are considered to be equal to large organisations but do not have the same power. I am thinking of issues to do with commercial contracts in financial banking, where a microbusiness is considered in law to have the same weight as NatWest. What are the similarities in the service that you offer to small businesses, and where are some of the advocacy differences?