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: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
The principal item on our agenda is continued consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s report, “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”, which is a continuation of the evidence session that we held on 26 May.
I welcome back our witnesses. Colin Cook is the director of economic development in the Scottish Government, and Dermot Rhatigan is the deputy director for manufacturing and industries. Mo Rooney joins us in the committee room today. She is the deputy director of the Scottish Government’s strategic commercial interventions division. From Transport Scotland, we have Hugh Gillies, interim chief executive; Fran Pacitti, director of aviation, maritime freight and canals; and Chris Wilcock, head of the ferries unit.
Before moving to questions, I want to place on the record the committee’s disappointment that we are not joined today by the portfolio accountable officer for transport—the director general for net zero. Section 9 of the Scottish public finance manual is pretty clear about the expectations that are placed on designated accountable officers to give evidence to the committee. We retain the option of calling back the interim DG for net zero at some point in the future.
I remind members and witnesses that, as always, we are up against the clock, so I ask that we try to keep questions and answers as short and concise as possible.
I invite Colin Cook to make an opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
That is 11 May. You found that document on the morning of 11 May.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay. I am sure that people will draw their own conclusions from that.
I will ask about the bit of paper. The reason I asked you what you were asked to look for, Fran Pacitti, is that there is simply a dispute about what the bit of paper constitutes. The Audit Scotland report clearly said in its key messages:
“There is insufficient documentary evidence to explain why Scottish ministers accepted the risks and were content to approve the contract award in October 2015.”
In paragraph 28 of the report, Audit Scotland says:
“We consider that there should have been a proper record of this important decision.”
Do you think that that is what you found?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Mr Gillies, you are free to come in at any point in this exchange. I have to say that Transport Scotland’s view is different from that of Audit Scotland.
Another point to consider is that paragraph 5.1.9 of annex 1 to the Scottish public finance manual says that it is the duty of an accountable officer to
“ensure that risks, whether to achievement of business objectives, regularity, propriety or value for money, are identified, that their significance is assessed and that systems appropriate to the risks are place in all relevant areas to manage them”.
Does such a document exist?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Fran Pacitti, can you tell me who Alexander Anderson is—or was in October 2015?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Nobody knows who Alexander Anderson was, even though he is on those email trails that you unearthed on 11 May.
My understanding is that Alexander Anderson was a senior special adviser to the First Minister of Scotland, and he was copied in on those emails. Again, I ask the question: if you are saying that the decision was entirely for the transport minister, why was the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities copied in, why was the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and the Economy copied in, and why was a senior special adviser to the First Minister of Scotland copied in?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s report shows that the first of the summary of conclusions and recommendations is:
“Transport Scotland and CMAL applied inadequate due diligence in scrutinising and signing off the procurement process”.
Do you accept that?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Again, that seems to be rather at odds with the conclusion that was drawn by Audit Scotland that Transport Scotland had some oversight responsibility for the procurement process. Last time, we heard the mantra from Mr Brannen that it was all about buyer and builder, but this is public money. As an accountable officer, do you not have some accountability for how that money is spent?
09:30Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I will put to you a final point, which relates to whether the First Minister was involved, whether through a special adviser or directly or indirectly. In his evidence last time, Mr Brannen was quite clear—it is a pity that he is not here today—that there was no involvement whatsoever of the First Minister, and we accept him at his word. If that is the case, will you give us your understanding of why, when the First Minister was questioned on 29 March by Glenn Campbell of the BBC about whether it was on her say so, and he asked her,
“Did you say ‘go ahead’?”,
her reply was,
“I didn’t say don’t go ahead”?
Why would she not just give an unequivocal Roy Brannen answer and say, “No, I was not involved”?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 9 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I thank Willie Coffey for his questions. I turn to Craig Hoy, who will pick up on the same theme, so Mo Rooney might be able to come in in response to his questions.
