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 3014 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Richard Leonard
We will put the points to NRS when it comes before us. Willie Coffey joins us remotely and has a number of questions to put.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Richard Leonard
I invite Craig Hoy to ask some questions.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of National Records of Scotland”
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Richard Leonard
We cannot hear you at the moment, Mr Samson. We will try to fix that. I am afraid that you might have to start again. [Interruption.] No, we are still not able to hear you.
Craig, do you want to press on with a supplementary, or do you want to move to your next question? Perhaps the Auditor General wants to come back in.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
Maybe I am misreading the situation, but is not it odd that the directly elected commissioners do not shape the budget of the Crofting Commission, or were excluded from the process? Mr Barron, I know that you said that that was the normal state of affairs, but why would that be? I do not understand that.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
I also picked up the suggestion that there ought to be an accountable officer who would be a deputy to Mr Barron. Is that part of the plan?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
That would be helpful.
I have just a couple more questions. When he gave evidence to the committee on the section 22 report, the Auditor General for Scotland said that there is an “Improvement Plan”—which I believe had a capital I and capital P. Can you give us an insight into where you are on that journey?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
My final question is on an issue that, again, we reflected on in the evidence session with the Auditor General. I think that a report with recommendations was produced by consultants in 2016. It appears that some of the recommendations that have come from the Deloitte audit echo issues that were raised then. The question that lingers in my mind—forgive me for missing the first part of the meeting—is this: what confidence can we, as the Public Audit Committee of the Parliament, have that things will be different this time, and that the improvement plan will be implemented and some fundamental issues addressed and solved?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Crofting Commission”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
Mr Barron described the situation as being not untypical of what happens in other parts of the public sector. When I read and understand what has happened, I see a high degree of turbulence. The former convener left and the one before that left under extraordinary circumstances that I have not quite got to the bottom of. There was, of course, also a vote of no confidence or a call for your resignation. Those instances are not necessarily recognisable as typical of how things have been in other parts of the public sector.
We are asking these questions not because we want you to fail but because we want you to succeed. It is extremely important that the crofting communities and the crofting way of life be sustained, sustainable and successful. You have a key part to play in that, so I wish you well.
I presume that there is a continuing relationship with the auditors from Deloitte so that they can help you and work with you through the improvement plan to ensure that things get on to a sustainable track that will lead to the support that the crofting communities need.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland”; and “Personal protective equipment”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
On that note, I will not bring in Gordon Beattie, and we will finish there. Caroline Lamb’s point is absolutely correct, and workforce planning is one of the things that the committee concerns itself with on a regular basis. If there are staff shortages or other staff issues, we are keen to learn about those and encourage organisations to address them and keep them as a priority. As Willie Coffey said, staff’s efforts have been monumental and they will continue to need to be as we look to the future.
I thank everybody who joined us to give evidence—Mary Morgan, Carolyn Low and Gordon Beattie from NSS and Caroline Lamb and Richard McCallum from the NHS and the Government directorate.
I now close the public part of the meeting.
11:05 Meeting continued in private until 11:35.Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland”; and “Personal protective equipment”
Meeting date: 2 December 2021
Richard Leonard
And so say all of us. We have a limited amount of time, but I have a couple of short final questions. Mary Morgan and Caroline Lamb, if there are points that you feel as though you have not had an opportunity to make or that on reflection you wanted to make, please do not hesitate to put something in writing to us to capture anything that you think would be useful for our deliberations.
Mary, in your opening statement, you mentioned procurement arrangements and the legal framework and all that. You said that that was all back to normal. As the Public Audit Committee, we are always concerned to make sure that contract notices are uploaded within the legal framework and that they are published within legal timeframes. Could you confirm—with a yes-or-no answer—whether that is now the case?
