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 1472 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
I will be even narrower. Does the framework actually work? Last October, in reaction to the Rutherglen by-election, a council tax freeze was announced within days. We have had three years in a row of emergency budgets, with major adjustments to public spending. A plethora of reports that have come in front of the committee say that the Government does not take long-term decisions, particularly on the public finances and public service reform. Are the objectives that are set in the framework the right ones when it comes to governing those key issues? Do they help us with the core issues of making long-term decisions? That does not appear to be the case.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
Good afternoon, Deputy First Minister. The evidence that the committee has received so far indicates that many stakeholders see the national performance framework as a way of trying to break the short-term cycle of politics in order to gain a longer-term view. Does it help in that regard?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
I do not think that you will find any disagreement from the committee on that point. However, I have already cited a range of external observers who say that what you describe is exactly what is not happening with this Government, given its handling of public finances.
You had a go at this when you were Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, in your resource spending review: you tried to take some decisions for the longer term and to talk about a strategy. However, Shona Robison later came to the committee and said that she was ditching that policy because it was “a blunt tool”. Is that not what happens to long-term thinking under this Government?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
So it was not “a blunt tool”.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
On 30 May, you published the Scottish Government’s pay policy, which indicated an assumption of 3 per cent for pay awards. Was that the figure that you used in establishing the 2024-25 budget?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
It is good that you reflect on the comments from the SFC and the Fraser of Allander Institute—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
Three per cent was not very realistic, was it?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
On that point, the Fraser of Allander Institute has suggested that you should set out your assumptions and your intent, then present scenario plans. For instance, you have revealed today that, for 2024-25, you set out a 3 per cent assumption. However, you would set out assumptions in scenario plans with regard to where you would take the money from in the rest of your budget, were that to rise to 4 per cent or 5 per cent. That would allow Parliament to scrutinise the budget. Frankly, in your negotiations, it would make it possible to understand the consequences of some of your decisions. That is not my suggestion; it is the Fraser of Allander Institute saying that that would be a different way to approach Scottish budgeting prudently. We have to accept that, at the moment, the budget is not in a very good state, so we want a better process.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
Perhaps not.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Proposed National Outcomes
Meeting date: 8 October 2024
Michael Marra
I have one final question, on a slightly different area. It is on the point about the difference between the sustainable development goals and the national performance framework as a tool to drive performance. The framework, conceptually, is the basis on which we set outcomes and try to measure performance against them, whereas the sustainable development goals are “calls to action”, as they have been described; they essentially have funding pots set against them and positive actions that can be about aligning activity.
In contrast, what you are doing with the framework, in essence, is setting out an organising principle for the civil service, as you described it. I find that the confusion between those two operating models, in terms of the bureaucracy, might actually be part of the problem rather than the solution, because those two things—the sustainable development goals and the national performance framework—are not the same.
