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 757 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
I will delve into that a bit more. One of the reasons why we do not invoke the national performance framework in Parliament that much is that it is not referred to very often in the guidance that is set out by ministers, in the legislation when bodies are brought into being or, indeed, in the regular reporting by way of ministerial statements or the budget. Although I accept your point that the Parliament could use it, it is ultimately the Government that has set the framework and that invokes it. It is less likely that the rest of us will use it voluntarily. Do you agree with that assessment?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
I have a final question. I take the broad view that, if things are useful, they get used. If, as you are saying, the national performance framework is not being used as much as it could be used, is that a reflection of the content of the framework? Does there need to be a re-examination of whether those are the right measures providing the right insights? If the framework was useful and insightful, surely your colleagues and our colleagues in the Parliament would be using it much more.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
Thanks very much, Douglas. I believe that Alasdair Allan has a question.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Performance Framework
Meeting date: 29 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
I think that we all prefer carrots to sticks.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
That would be great.
I have a second question. You said that the Scottish Government would seek full devolution of income tax, VAT and national insurance contributions. Are you talking about full devolution of not just the setting but the collecting of those taxes? Would you limit the approach to those taxes—the top three taxes in the United Kingdom, in terms of receipts—or would you go further down the list? The next tax on the list is corporation tax. Are there other levies that you would seek to devolve?
When we consider the total tax revenue that is levied, I estimate that you are seeking the devolution to Scotland of around 70 per cent of taxation, if we include the three taxes that you want to be devolved with the taxes that are already devolved. Is that roughly what you estimate?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
But that is my point. The growth of the average receipt per capita determines significantly what we have to spend. I would need to double check but, from memory, it is about 20 to 25 per cent of the revenue that we have to spend in Scotland. In terms of the overall tax policy that the Scottish Government controls, you correctly say that there are a number of taxes and this is about all tax, but the lion’s share of that is income tax. It dwarves all the other taxes that we have at our control.
Given that that is such a fundamental dynamic, which is so important for determining whether we have more money to spend compared to pre-devolution or less, I wonder why that is not explicitly stated. You said that the fiscal framework is complex; I do not really understand why it is not baked into the tax framework.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
That is sort of my point.
I want to go back to a specific point that the convener raised about non-domestic rates. You are saying that the framework should be responsive to societal shifts. Surely, everything that is going on—including the fact that, depending on the point in time that you pick, online sales now account for between a quarter and 30 per cent of total retail sales—would suggest that you need a fundamental review of non-domestic rates, especially if you are using the framework properly.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
I will think about whether it is helpful.
Let me move on a little. You just mentioned evaluation, which is really important, but there is not a single reference to how that evaluation will take place, certainly not in terms of measurement. I wonder why the document does not include a broad approach to what measures would be taken into consideration to assess the various elements of the framework.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
You have four objectives: stable revenues, a wellbeing economy, national outcomes and responsiveness to societal shifts. If you have objectives, surely you should have a way of measuring them.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Daniel Johnson
I have two supplementary questions, the first of which follows straight on from that discussion.
The question is broader than that of North Sea oil and the transition to green jobs. A number of the answers begged further questions around what forecasting the Scottish Government undertakes.
We know that the Scottish Government is about to publish a multiyear spending review. I presume that forecasting will form part of that, so that the Scottish Government can have some view of what revenues will be generated over the period. Is the Scottish Government relying just on the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecast? If so, is it doing further interrogation? Is it undertaking its own forecasting?
The point is important; it is about what forecasts are used and where they are generated. Will you clarify what the Scottish Government is doing?
