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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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
I think that other members want to come in on that point. On the point that Gill Miller made, I direct this first to the Auditor General: why is there no documentary evidence? Is it hidden, is it missing or does it simply not exist?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
As we are literally out of time, I draw the evidence session to a close. I thank the Auditor General, Antony Clark, Angela Canning and Gill Miller for joining us this morning, and I invite them to return at the earliest opportunity.
I also thank them for their evidence. We have a whole load more questions that we need to ask and we need to consider what our next steps might be, but I must thank the witnesses for their openness and willingness to answer our questions this morning.
With that, we move into private session.
11:15 Meeting continued in private until 11:46.Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
We will go back to you, Craig.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Well, we all have lots more questions, which I think demonstrates the need for at least another evidence-taking session on this matter. I know that there are committee members who want to come back in, myself included; however, as I mentioned at the start of the session, Rhoda Grant is joining us remotely, and I invite her, in these last couple of minutes, to put her questions to the team.
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
In those answers, I did not hear anybody talk about going beyond commissioning or about conversion to more of a national health service model for the national care service. However, we are pressed for time, so I will move on.
We have covered a lot on the workforce, but I have a parting question on that. Caroline Lamb, you mentioned the uprating of the hourly rate of pay from April this year. Do you have a timetable showing where you expect rates of pay to go in the next five years? That is the time horizon that you spoke about for the 25 per cent uplift in resources.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Auditor General, I will take you back to the question that Craig Hoy put to you on written authority and ministerial direction. It is central to the debate about transparency, accountability and when decisions were made.
When I review the correspondence from 8 October and 9 October, I discern that written authority might have been at work. The email from Transport Scotland that reflects CMAL’s concerns about the risks associated with the contract says:
“The Board would wish the Minister to be appraised of these risks and to acknowledge to the Board that he fully understood the potential risk of assigning a contract to FMEL under these circumstances. The Board feel it is their absolute duty to point out the risk to their shareholder and in that respect would expect approval, should”
the Scottish Government
“wish this project to proceed, and to receive direction to that effect”.
The expression “direction” is explicitly used in that correspondence.
The next day, the reply is submitted. That letter to Erik Østergaard from the director of aviation, maritime, freight and canals at Transport Scotland, dated 9 October, says:
“The Scottish Ministers, both in their capacity as CMAL’s sole shareholder and more generally, also confirm that CMAL is authorised”—
Transport Scotland uses the word “authorised”—
“to enter into the Contracts and any associated documentation.”
Paragraph 10 of the letter says:
“I confirm that the Scottish Ministers”—
plural—
“have considered and approved the contents of this letter.”
It looks very much as though there was written authorisation and ministerial direction, but it does not appear to have been recorded, as is required under the legislation. Do you have any comment on that?
10:45Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you for that concise and clear opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Donna, do you want to add to that?
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
We have two evidence sessions this morning. The second is with the Auditor General for Scotland on the report on the new vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides. However, before that, we will take evidence on the Audit Scotland briefing on social care that came out recently.
I am delighted to welcome our four witnesses, who join us online. We are joined by Caroline Lamb, who is the chief executive of NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government’s director general for health and social care, and Donna Bell, who is the director of social care and national care service development in the Scottish Government. We are also joined by two representatives from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities: Nicola Dickie, who is the director of people and policy, and Sarah Watters, who is the director of membership and resources.
We have a series of questions to put to the witnesses after we hear short opening statements from Caroline Lamb and Nicola Dickie. Given that the witnesses are online, they should use the chat function to indicate if any of them wants to come in and we will do our level best to bring them in. If Caroline Lamb or Nicola Dickie wants to bring in Donna Bell or Sarah Watters, they should let us know and we will ensure that they are called in.
I invite Caroline Lamb to give us a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
“Social care briefing”
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. My next question is whether you both accept the recommendations in paragraphs 35 to 38 of the Audit Scotland briefing. Do you accept the recommendations that are set out there?
