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 3014 contributions
|
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2022-23
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Richard Leonard
Yes, it does. That was helpful. I presume that any money that is recovered as a result of the initiative goes back to the bodies that have been defrauded, and not to Audit Scotland.
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2022-23
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Richard Leonard
My point is that although you have to pay a fee to get the data sets, and although you track the fraud, you do not get to recover the fee that you have to pay in the first place.
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2022-23
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Richard Leonard
That would be helpful.
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2022-23
Meeting date: 22 December 2021
Richard Leonard
I have just one very quick question. I note that paragraph 68 of the budget proposal document, under the heading “Other administrative costs”, mentions an increase of £220,000
“in respect of the biennial National Fraud Initiative”.
Can Stephen Boyle explain how that figure has been calculated? Is the increase for recruiting additional staff or for bringing in additional services? Moreover, can you explain for our benefit under which of the various budget lines that expense sits in the table in appendix 2 on page 19 of the document?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
I thank Roy Brannen, John Kerr and Andrew Scott for giving us their time and for answering our questions on the wide range of topics that are covered in the report.
I now close the public part of the meeting.
10:30 Meeting continued in private until 11:33.Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
I finish by reflecting on my first question, which was to ask Roy Brannen whether he accepts in full the findings as well as the recommendations of the Audit Scotland report, and I think that he said that he does. However, I want to revisit a couple of points that came up during the evidence this morning. At one point, there was a suggestion that there was a failure of active engagement by the audit and finance committee in the drafting of the 2020-21 budget, but that is not how I read Audit Scotland’s report, which suggests that the audit and finance committee was sidelined and there was minimal involvement of the senior management team, outside of the finance director and the chief executive. That is what led to recommendations of a greater degree of key stakeholder involvement.
The other point that I come back to is the suggestion that some of the blurring of roles and responsibilities was the product of Covid and people stepping into the breach when needed. Paragraph 13 of the Audit Scotland report states that some members of the board
“excessively involved themselves in matters that would typically be the responsibility of the Senior Management Team”,
and says that large amounts of board time were spent
“discussing individual grades that new staff positions should be at within the organisation, including for junior positions.”
The report suggests that those criticisms are not just a function of Covid but predate it. Mr Brennan, can you give us any reflections on those points?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
My final question is: could we receive a copy of the final framework document when it is signed off by the cabinet secretary, please?
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in this session.
The first item on our agenda is a decision on taking items 3 and 4 in private. If any member objects to taking items 3 and 4 in private, please raise your hand. I see no objections, so I take that as assent. Thank you.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
The second item on our agenda is further evidence on the Audit Scotland report on the Crofting Commission. I am pleased to welcome our Scottish Government witnesses, who all join us online: Roy Brannen is the interim director general for net zero, Andrew Scott is the director for agriculture and rural economy, and John Kerr is the head of the agricultural policy division.
To get us under way, I invite Mr Brannen to make a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Richard Leonard
Did you want to come back in, Mr Brannen?
