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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 1608 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Michelle Thomson
My last question is about the difference between accountability and responsibility. The Scottish Government is accountable for many of the outcomes in the national performance framework, which is very outcome-driven. Our discussion today has been about the areas where the Scottish Government has responsibility, or those where it has no responsibility, despite having accountability for a range of areas.
There is also the reverse situation in which the UK Government is accountable for many areas but is not subject to scrutiny by the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliament.
If you were to have a choice about the areas in which responsibility was aligned with accountability, which top three areas would you pick, given the considerable short and long-term economic challenges that we have explored today? Which three things would you like to place on record?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Michelle Thomson
I will follow on from the theme of tax avoidance that Ross Greer highlighted.
I understand that there is a historical dispute going back to devolution of further powers in relation to proceeds of crime and 拢30 million that it was originally assumed would remain with the Scottish Government but which the UK Government now assumes will go back to it. Is that still the case, and can you give us any insight into the discussions that you are having with the UK Government on the matter? Can you also confirm that, if you moved resources from Police Scotland into dealing with more financial crime, none of the benefit of such a move would accrue to the Scottish Government budget?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Given the focus that there has been on supporting capital investment in early-stage businesses, what progress has there been in managing that with Scottish Enterprise, the SNIB and so on? Where is that at the moment? Can you give some insights?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Following on from that point, have you had any indications of any possible or reasonable rationale as to why the UK Government would not accept the amendment, given your stated concerns about standards? Is there anything that you can share in that regard? If the UK Government is saying that there is no intention of lowering standards, why not simply accept the amendment? Can you clarify the situation?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
The situation around FTs has been mentioned, and clear concern has been expressed about the changes in funding. I want to allow you to put on the record any mitigations and your planned approach, given the Scottish Government鈥檚 undoubted focus on supporting business and growing the economy. Can you give any further insights on how you will mitigate the loss of FTs going forward?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 28 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Thank you for those responses. The problem is that, as we all agree, we do not know anything until the data is there. Obviously, your function fits in with that. However, how do we strike the right balance between retrospective assessment and future forecasting, particularly if we are to adhere to good principles of accountability and responsibility? Do you have any plans to put some meat on the bones? How will that make your scrutiny role鈥攁nd ours鈥攎ore complex? It may be that, as you start to get more information coming through, you will also consider reflecting on that. The situation is beyond complex already, and this will make it complex cubed, in my humble opinion.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 28 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
We have spent a large part of this evidence session looking at and evaluating the complexity of Audit Scotland鈥檚 scrutiny and our scrutiny. As Mark Taylor pointed out, it is the case that we can start to understand a lot of spending only once it is in the past.
I will ask about something that I am struggling to get my head around. In my former life in management, there was a clear difference between accountability and responsibility. I see that difference writ large here, because the Scottish Government is accountable for spend outcomes via the national performance framework, which we have talked about, but it has no responsibility in certain areas. We have the curious situation where the Scottish Government is accountable for the outcomes but it has no responsibility for efficient and effective delivery. The UK Government is responsible, but it is reluctant to be held accountable, or it has no accountability in the area.
It is on the record that the replacement for European Union structural funds will be spent by the UK Government and administered by a local government minister鈥擨 think that it is the English communities minister鈥攄irect to local councils. How on earth can you audit that effectively? I can see that Mark Taylor thinks that that question is a belter. How are you reflecting on that additional complexity and linking it back to outcomes?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
In terms of the stats for your group, where does Grangemouth fit in all the measures that you would apply鈥攑articularly, I imagine, around profitability? I do not mean in relative terms to Scotland鈥檚 economy, but in relative terms to the group.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
You must have sensed the point that I was coming on to. I was going to ask what you would need to do in order to move Grangemouth to number 1. In particular, what structural issues would you seek to overcome?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 September 2021
Michelle Thomson
Just to finish off on this point, with reference to the current structure of the owning company, does the level of debt leverage limit investment?