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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 893 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Craig Hoy
Paragraphs 70 and 71 of the briefing were the two that drew media attention. In paragraph 70, you state:
“In the face of the financial challenges, the pace and scale of reform needs to increase, and this will require a sense of urgency from the Scottish Government, at a time when it is also pressing to resolve short-term issues facing the budget.”
You go on to state in paragraph 71:
“If this does not happen, it will become increasingly difficult for the Scottish Government to manage the pressures on the budget, meaning that the cuts to spending necessary to balance the budget will become larger, and the quality of public services delivered will worsen.”
To move to that point, there will have to be some radical action on the pace and scale of public sector reform, which will have to start relatively quickly.
You will have seen the report about NHS managers discussing some quite radical potential solutions to the problems in the NHS, including charging for prescriptions or scaling back free prescriptions. Are those discussions happening throughout the public sector? Has the Government charged the public sector with an opportunity to look radically at the basis on which public services are operating in Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Craig Hoy
Page 22 of the briefing states that
“The public should be fully involved in the key decisions about how public services need to change”
and how they are reformed. What evidence have you seen that the Scottish Government and other public bodies are engaging with the public? Is there a risk that there may sometimes be a difference between public opinion on a stated public policy objective, such as the creation of a national care service, and the actual deliverability and practical roll-out of that?
For example, the minister said today that the reason why the Government will press ahead with an NCS is that the public support it, but we have stakeholders such as unions, the national health service and those who are involved in care saying that they do not support the model. Is there a risk that public opinion and the reality on the ground may be divergent?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
I will bring in the Auditor General first and then branch out from there.
Auditor General, your briefing says that, overall,
“£3.3 billion was spent on tackling child poverty between 2018/19 and 2021/22”.
By my very basic—and often flawed—maths, that works out at about £3,400 per child who is living in or experiencing poverty. Will you give us some insight into how that money is being tracked? Is the measurement to which Bill Scott referred in the evaluation sufficient, bearing in mind that your briefing says that
“child poverty has not reduced”
and that there is “no evidence”—admittedly, that was at the mid-point when the assessment was made—to suggest that the actions in the delivery plan have reduced child poverty? How is the money tracked and how effectively is it being spent?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
No—that was helpful.
In relation to the Scottish Government’s perspective, I note that, when Joe Griffin appeared before us, we discussed the pupil attainment gap and the £1 billion that has been spent on tackling that, but we were left with the impression that he was not sure whether the money had been effective or whether it was spent in a way that would close that gap. Should we have similar concerns in relation to child poverty? It is clear that there is a will to tackle child poverty, but are we likely to repeat the same mistakes by spending the money in a way that is not proving to be as effective as it could be?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
I would like to open up the discussion to other stakeholders. There is an issue around the ring fencing of funds for local government, which limits local authorities’ ability to target child poverty in their areas with a laser-like focus, but there is also an issue in relation to the way in which funds are allocated to third sector organisations.
Ryan, will you say a bit about the way in which funds come to you? In a fast-moving situation such as the Covid pandemic or the cost of living crisis, the funds that you apply for are often for specific projects, which limits your ability to spend those funds on other projects. Would more flexibility in how you can spend the funds that you get from Government and other organisations allow you to target your work in a more innovative way?
10:15Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
It strikes me that some of those barriers are going back up again. I see that Bruce Adamson wants to comment.
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
How would you seek to resolve the tensions that ring fencing creates for local authorities? Would it be through less directed spending?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
Mr Johnston, may I hear your reflections on the current financial position and the impact that it might have on delivery of the actions in the second delivery plan to tackle child poverty, particularly in areas such as employability, where there has been a real-terms cut in provision?
Public Audit Committee
“Tackling child poverty”
Meeting date: 10 November 2022
Craig Hoy
I am an MSP for South Scotland.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 4 November 2022
Craig Hoy
I accept that.
