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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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
“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
On the council tax reduction, page 13 of the report states that councils identified 772 cases of fraud or error with a total outcome of ÂŁ700,000 in 2020-21. That is 2.5 times the number of cases that were identified in 2018-19. The report appears to suggest that councils are of the view that that might have been directly caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Will you elaborate on that? What aspect of the pandemic might have resulted in that increase?
Public Audit Committee
“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
I have a couple of slightly broader questions. Given the relatively low number of prosecutions and the cost of living crisis, do you expect fraudulent activity to increase during a period of economic downturn?
Public Audit Committee
“National Fraud Initiative in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Craig Hoy
That identifies my concern. If you were to steal ÂŁ14,000 from your neighbour, that would be perceived to be a pretty heinous crime but, because of the size of council budgets, if you steal ÂŁ14,000 from the council, it appears that, as long as it gets the money back, there is no legal sanction. That is an underlying concern but perhaps we shall return to it another day.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Craig Hoy
It is obvious that prioritisation will be an issue, but it is evident that there is a significant shortfall in relation to backlog maintenance. There will also be the requirement to make sure that the estate meets net zero targets. Are you concerned that the capital funding shortfall—historically and in future—could undermine the delivery of education through the safety of the estate, and how concerned are you that the big capital expenditure that is required to meet the net zero target may not be achievable given the on-going tight framework that exists throughout the sector?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Obviously, Audit Scotland’s evidence suggests the very tight financial arrangements that colleges will face. Are the expectations realistic or will they just add more pressure to an already overstretched resource allocation?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Craig Hoy
In “Scotland’s colleges 2019”, you recommended that the SFC and the Scottish Government
“agree and publish a medium-term capital investment strategy that sets out sector-wide priorities”.
That is yet to be published. Are you confident that work on that strategy is on track? When can we expect to see a finalised plan?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Mr Boyle. I will take up the convener’s point in relation to the improvement plan and the expectations that it places on colleges. After that, we can maybe look at forward capital expenditure plans and tie up a couple of loose ends in relation to estate maintenance.
First and foremost, your briefing highlights a number of actions that the Scottish Government and the SFC must take to provide clarity and support for the long-term improvement plan in the sector. In your view, at this stage, have the Scottish Government and the SFC provided enough guidance to ensure that colleges are fully aware of the expectations that are—and will be—placed on them?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
CMAL expressed concerns to this committee about the razzmatazz and fanfare around the announcement of the preferred bidder status. Obviously, it thought at that point that that almost locked in the deal and that it would bind its hands in future negotiations. Did Transport Scotland advise Scottish ministers to perhaps consider a more discreet way to achieve the milestone of preferred bidder status?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
You would concede, however, that there was some degree of political risk in proceeding.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Craig Hoy
In relation to preferred bidder status, FMEL was a going concern from that point onwards and the contract award was almost seen as a done deal. Before you left on holiday, what was the status of that decision, and would you have approved that had you been in the office, rather than on leave?
