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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 3298 contributions
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 23 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I think that some of the big retail chains returned their NDR rebates.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Just so that I understand this properly, are you saying that the time lags are a result not just of your ability to carry out the work but of when the public bodies that you are auditing prepare their accounts?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Stuart Dennis used the phrase “catching up”, but the 2021-22 annual report shows that 75 per cent of audits were delivered—which I presume means that 25 per cent were not completed. I think that, this time last year, the figure was 82 per cent, and I am reliably informed that, pre-pandemic, the figure was around 100 per cent or at least in the high 90s. What is the reason for that? Why, on the face of those figures, does there appear to have been not a catching up but a falling back?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you.
Professor Alexander talked about development and things being dynamic, moving and so on. One of the massive adjustments that you have had to make is the move from having an office-based operation, with audits being carried out in other people’s premises, to carrying out a lot of your work in a virtual way. Indeed, the staffing of your office has been virtual. I was pleased to visit the office last week, and I understand that it was the first time that so many people had been in at any one time. How do you see future working arrangements? Do you see a return to the pre-pandemic model of operation? Where do you see the balance between people being present in the office and their working in different locations?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Do you expect to be back to 100 per cent in 12 months’ time?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I take no responsibility for whether people decide that they want to come back to work or, on seeing me in their office, decide that they do not.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Richard Leonard
For those who are interested in the landscape of the yard and how it works, I point people to the evidence that Alex Logan, the GMB convener at the yard, gave on 22 January 2020 to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee.
Sharon Dowey has some questions.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I am sorry, but your meeting with Mr Mackay was on 5 June 2018.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 16 June 2022
Richard Leonard
So he said that, three years ago, he got a threat that people would resign.