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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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Do you have a comment, Professor Connolly?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have a final comment, convener. I know that I still have some time.
John Connolly mentioned culture and innovation. There is a tendency with some people to think that reform of the public sector means having less of it but with the same structure, culture and behaviours. You distinctly made that comment about innovation. At a change level, it is extraordinarily difficult in any organisation to change culture and empower people. Do you have final thoughts about how you would go about that? It is quite a challenge.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I ask John Connolly and Antony Clark whether they agree with that point about positive action to involve the public fully.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Convener
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I nominate John Mason.
John Mason was chosen as convener.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
It is alphabetical order, and T comes last.
I thank the witnesses for joining us. I have a few questions. I first want to come to Alison Payne. We have had an interesting discussion, but we have not touched on public perceptions all that much. Arguably, the public are behind the curve, and react to changes by thinking, “It’s going to cost me more,” or, “I am going to get less.” In your opinion, in light of the step back by the former Deputy First Minister from the resource spending review—we now know that the local bodies will look at their own efficiencies or reforms—and accepting all your earlier comments, where do the public fit in that? To what extent is the new approach a missed opportunity for making the public part of this “burning platform for change” that Antony Clark talked about?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Professor Connolly, I hope that you will be able to add, from an academic perspective, your recommendations on the most effective ways in which the Scottish Government could involve the public.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Yes. I suppose that my point is whether, given the data that we have on the strict definition of public services, that is actually an underestimate of the implications, and, therefore, when we look at public sector reform, whether the implications are greatly more significant. I am just trying to get a handle on that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
My last question is slightly more about the nuts and bolts. By getting individual bodies to look at their own efficiencies or reforms—however we want to phrase it—we are missing the opportunity to create shared services, which is not an unusual way to get economies of scale. I am thinking about having multiple finance directors and human resources directors and, of course, procurement, where you can get economies of scale.
Probably for that reason alone, I was surprised by the step back from the RSR. It seems to me that, with the best will in the world, turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Do you agree that those areas are perhaps obvious ones where we might want to start to look at change, if it is not reform? I appreciate your analogy, Alison, and I accept that that is rather crude. I would regard that not as reform but perhaps as lower-hanging fruit. Since you are smiling, Alison, you may as well go first.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Can I have comments on that from John Connolly and Antony Clark?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 23 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
It is about the framing, if you like.
I have a slightly technical question for Antony Clark to help furnish my knowledge. As I understand it, there are rules about what is deemed to be a public body and is therefore pulled into the figures, the increase in which I saw in your submission. It strikes me that there may well be other bodies that do not fulfil those criteria but that receive the majority of their money from the Scottish Government. There is an analogy with IR35 in the private sector—arguably, if the rules were applied, those bodies would be deemed part of the public sector. Are you aware of that scenario? I am not asking you to name anyone; it is an in-principle question.
