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 1351 contributions
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Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
From reading the bill as a whole, I think that it is clear that the nature of the judicial factor’s role is fiduciary. While the term “fiduciary duty” is not used in the bill, the Government considers that the bill will achieve the same effect.
A fiduciary duty is essentially a duty to act in good faith in the interests of another, rather than in one’s own self-interest. Section 10 of the bill makes it clear that judicial factors have
“to hold, manage, administer and protect the factory estate for the benefit of persons with an interest in the estate.”
It also requires judicial factors to
“exercise care, prudence and diligence”
and
“take professional advice when appropriate.”
The Scottish Law Commission told the committee that it had set out
“very clearly in”
its
“report that the essence of the institution was that it was fiduciary”—[Official Report, Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, 16 April 2024; c 16.]
and that it was not considered “necessary” to include a specific reference to that in the bill.
I understand that some stakeholders have suggested that the matter should be clarified, but others, such as the SLC and the Faculty of Advocates, have pointed out that to add even a simple statement to that effect could have unintended consequences. However, it might be possible to add something to the explanatory notes to the bill in order to make that point clearer for users of the legislation, and I am willing to consider that further.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
Section 23 of the bill contains a general rule that any costs of litigation that is pursued by the judicial factor
“on behalf of the factory estate”
are
“to be met from the factory estate.”
The general rule is, however, “Subject to section 24” of the bill. Under section 24, the court is given the power to find a judicial factor personally liable if they have breached their duty and the court finds it “appropriate” to hold them “personally liable”.
We need to strike the right balance to allow a judicial factor reasonable space to manage an estate in good faith. I do not think that a judicial factor should be found personally liable if, with the benefit of hindsight, their actions are found to have been unreasonable but there has been no breach of duty.
Given the continuing need for competent judicial factors, we must be careful, and we do not necessarily want to put blocks in the way of people wanting to be appointed. Allowing for judicial factors to be held personally liable for taking actions that do not amount to a breach of duty would, in my view, be likely to discourage judicial factors from pursuing litigation that is in the interests of the estate, and perhaps even discourage individuals from acting as judicial factors altogether.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
I consider that the bill and the 1977 act work alongside each other. The bill allows for the appointment of a judicial factor to manage the estate of a missing person. If the missing person is subsequently declared dead by way of an application under the 1977 act, the purpose for which the judicial factor was appointed would no longer exist and the judicial factory would be terminated. As the committee heard, families of missing people may not want to apply immediately for a declarator, and the appointment of a judicial factor to manage the missing person’s estate is an alternative.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
You would think that they were an accountant per se.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
You raise a valid point. In general, a layperson would probably assume that the Accountant of Court was an accountant, so we could perhaps look at how we make that a bit clearer.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
If I may, I will bring in Michael Paparakis, because he has a lot of knowledge of the history and the technical aspects of the role.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
We are happy to consider that further.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
I will bring in Michael Paparakis. On the basis of my experience of being a minister for a year, I note that the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill, which went through last year, was on the same timescale, in that work had first been done 10 years ago. There is a bit of a challenge in relation to the parliamentary timetable and where we can slot in such legislation, but we have taken through eight SLC bills, and we are determined to keep progressing with them. Michael may want to come in, as he has a lot of history with this.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
I do not think that the bill needs any particular statement with regard to missing persons, because we want judicial factors to cover all aspects and not just one specific aspect. However, as I said in my opening remarks, I am working with the charity Missing People on how we can strengthen the guidance for people in such situations.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Judicial Factors (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 7 May 2024
Siobhian Brown
I appreciate that. We will continue to work with the charity and I am open to doing so in the future. If there is anything that we can bring in to give some comfort to Missing People in particular, we will consider it.
