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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 3120 contributions
|
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Indeed.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I thank the minister and Mr Macleod for their evidence. We will publish a short report that sets out our decision on the draft instrument.
11:27 Meeting continued in private until 11:55.Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
In every debate, we hear more suggestions from your colleagues about the need for additional funding.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Yes, but that £160 million is for dealing with the 7,000-odd people who come forward for treatment, not all of whom take it up—we know that about a third do not go forward with it—and those who take up alcohol services. If we increase the budget from, say, £160 million to £198 million, as is suggested in the financial memorandum, but the number of people who seek treatment for drugs alone doubles from more than 7,000 to 15,000, that £198 million will get blown pretty quickly, assuming that all the staff and facilities are already in place.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Right to Addiction Recovery (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I appreciate what you say, but the point that I am trying to make is that, even if we take on board what you have said about the data, extraneous costs—capital and the stuff that I have already mentioned, such as complementary and on-going support—still do not seem to be included.
I will ask just one more question, because I know that colleagues are keen to come in. In paragraph 30 of its submission, COSLA says:
“It should also be noted that Employer’s National Insurance Contributions are also a significant pressing risk for Local Government, commissioned services and other public and third sector bodies. Councils would not be able to meet additional costs, if the rise is not fully funded, and would be forced to make difficult decisions, as would IJBs and ADPs.”
We are talking about a significant cost here. Where do you feel that the money could be found in the Scottish Government’s budget? We have just passed a budget, and there will be on-going and increasing demands and challenges throughout the year. It looks as though employer national insurance contribution increases are here to stay, so there will be an on-going cost for local authorities, the public sector and, indeed, the third sector, which is under the cosh, as you know. Where in the Scottish budget do you think that the money for the bill should come from?
10:00Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
We talked about zero-based budgeting in the committee after our visit to Estonia, where the Government is doing that at a departmental level. Of course, it is done quite a lot in many areas of the private sector. Might you take that approach to some of those public bodies? It seems that some of them are there because they have always been there, but you could look at them and ask what their core activity is and whether it has to be that organisation that delivers that activity. Could you look at public bodies in that way?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Yes, but you have said:
“The balance is held to fund any changes in demand led schemes and devolved tax receipts”.
It seems to me that there is almost a contingency beyond that contingency.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
The £6.9 million is not only for the 48 places or I would be able to do that; we just know that it includes the cost of those places. I am wondering what the cost is, so that we can see where the differentials are. Obviously, there is a high cost in the public sector in the Scottish Prison Service. If it is less expensive in the private sector, I can understand the Government looking to use that more in the future, rather than releasing prisoners. However, if it is more expensive—I suspect that it is, but I do not know, because we do not have the figures—that is something that you would not want to do unless you felt forced to do it.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I appreciate that, but, in that particular area of social security, there is huge variation. Obviously, there are concerns that there could be significant underestimates. Adult disability payments are another area where there are concerns. What is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that its forecasting and the data that it applies are more accurate, so that we do not have a situation in which we have such readjustments either later in the year or early next year?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 4 March 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I appreciate that. Thank you.
We all want to see minimal changes when we go through the autumn and spring budget revisions. Everyone wants the budget that is ultimately signed off a year later to reflect the one that was agreed to by Parliament the previous February.
I notice that £6.9 million of additional funding is going towards the Scottish Prison Service’s public-private partnership. That includes increasing the purchase of up to an additional 48 prison places at HMP Addiewell to help manage the large prison population. How much does it cost to buy a prison place for a year from the private sector?
