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 1828 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Is the struggle that the Government is having holding up any projects?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
Moving on, I want to talk about the condition of the public sector estate. Your briefing repeats a call that you and this committee have made consistently for a consolidated account to be produced covering the devolved public sector in Scotland. What stage is the Scottish Government at in responding to that recommendation?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
That is a fair point. You also make a really good point about the use of buildings. For example, some councils have been considering closing leisure centres. However, if that happens, the NHS may turn around and say, “If you close that centre, it will impact people’s health, which will cause more problems for us.” Is that the kind of joined-up approach that should be taken? If a council is considering doing that sort of thing, should it talk to the health service?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
You are absolutely right. Sharon Dowey asked an interesting question—well, she asked lots of interesting questions—about the condition of the public sector estate. She said that the single Scottish estate programme survey is limited to only administrative buildings and not other buildings. What is the rationale behind that?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
You could do that afterwards. I am not asking you to read out all 13—that might take some time.
I note that one of the projects mentioned in exhibit 5 is the dualling of the A9. In the other three projects highlighted as examples in that exhibit, you have given figures for cost increases, but I note that you have not done the same for the A9. Is it possible to produce a figure for how much costs have increased over time from when the project was first announced?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
But in the exhibit, you give a figure of £3 billion.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
How should the Government address that?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
When you talk about the public sector estate, are you talking only about Scottish Government buildings or do you include things such as councils, because they are a large part of the public sector?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Graham Simpson
You probably agree with the general thrust of my next question, then. If we are to do a survey of the public sector, it should be the entire public sector and not just Scottish Government buildings. It should include councils and health authorities, which you have mentioned—it should be everything.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2023”
Meeting date: 26 October 2023
Graham Simpson
The reason I ask is that I have been told that the Scottish Funding Council keeps its own risk register. There is basically a list of colleges that are doing well, some that are not doing so well and some that are listed as potentially being at risk of closing. My understanding is that there are five such colleges. Have you heard that?
