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 1489 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have every sympathy with the view that you expressed and I have probably made myself very unpopular by making my suggestion. I am acutely aware of local sensitivities, but there are duplicated functions, such as the FD function, which are not predicated on important outcomes for people. There is a lot of complexity, but the FD functions are counting and measuring broadly similar things across a range of services. If anything, changing that would cast more light on how money is being spent. That is an unpopular view, I know.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. I want to pick up on a couple of themes that have been touched on. First, I have been through all the responses with regard to public service reform, and I can see that a lot of stuff is going on—that is absolutely clear. I await further detail on that with interest.
It is no bad thing to ask local government to come up with its own ideas, and I am sure that it will do so. However, a bottom-up approach is only one way. What consideration have you given to a top-down approach? I have raised the point previously that we have duplicate functions—in particular, around human resources and finance directorship—across our 33 local councils. Presumably, we have 33 finance directors on an average salary of 88 grand or so—roughly £2 million in total—not to mention their departments. We could have centralised FD and HR functions across even just some local authority areas, but it is unlikely that local councils themselves would come up with that idea. Is it something that you would consider?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
That is understood.
The fiscal framework review came up earlier. I want to dig down into what exactly is happening. I fully accept the issue to do with the multitude of personnel changes in the UK Government—it is clear that there has been quite a revolving door—but I want to understand exactly where we are. As far as I am aware, the terms of reference have not yet been agreed. Where exactly are the blockers? What action have you taken, where you have been unable to make progress? Reading through the responses, I am no more certain of where we are with the review. We have highlighted its importance.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
Is it your perception that there is still a genuine appetite for change in the UK Government, or is it hard to determine that before your meeting on Friday, when you might ask that question?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
Yes, 32. Sorry.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Michelle Thomson
This is my last wee question on this. Do you hope that some kind of combined statement of intent will emerge from the meeting on Friday, including some specifics about any progress that has been made? Is that an outcome that you hope for?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
That is not going to happen.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you so much for coming along. It has been an absolutely fascinating session.
Long Covid was mentioned at the start of the meeting. It would be useful to understand a bit more about the context and, in particular, about the complexity of that issue. We know that it is extremely complex and that a multitude of presenting symptoms are being categorised. A lot of work is being done on that front. Long Covid has certainly moved quite a number of people into the category of being disabled. I want to get a sense of your opinion of the complexity. I am very struck by what has been said thus far about data collection and disaggregation. Will you flesh that out for me?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
I would like to know from both of you what your top two asks are of us, as a committee, in two scenarios. A lot of what we have talked about today has recognised the very real challenges that we have with data and with the economic climate and how it feeds into people not getting the multiyear funding that they would like. Recognising that constraint, what are the top two things that you would like to put on the record? Alternatively, if money and control were no object, what would be your top two asks?
11:15Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 18 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
That is good to hear. You can be fully confident that I will be asking how, specifically, those steps are bold, audacious and ambitious.