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 1467 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
There is a careful balance to be struck between legitimate expectations of performance and support and inappropriate conduct. I am mindful of that a great deal. There are times when I am frustrated by things that are put in front of me, but I always express my frustration in an appropriate and courteous fashion. I need to be supplied with accurate information—if I do not use accurate information, people complain about that. If I do not think that I am getting accurate information, I will press to get it, but I will do so in an appropriate fashion. There is a careful balance between setting out legitimate expectations of performance and behaving in a fashion in which your conduct is not acceptable. Ministers have to be very careful to calibrate that balance in the right fashion.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
There are none, full stop. Our complaints handling process has been in place since February. That is the process as it stands. For total completeness, I set out that we have had no complaints submitted on the basis of the procedure that was put in place in February. The changes that I am explaining today will potentially give rise to further change to the procedure in due course. At that moment, the points that I am raising today will be included in the procedure. As I said in response to the convener’s points, if the committee thinks that we are not getting this right, I will be interested to hear that from the committee. Notwithstanding that, with any complaints that are received after that moment of application, we will reflect any changes in the procedures.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
The issue is not that I judge that not to be appropriate; it is that we do not have a basis for so doing.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
It is about an initial consideration of the substance of the issue and whether it should be considered as a complaint. Some voices will say that that provision should not exist and that every issue should be considered fully but, in my judgment, it is appropriate that we have that initial consideration, given the context that Liz Smith puts about other scenarios.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
The key thing is the question of transparency, because I regularly hear calls for the Government to be transparent about absolutely everything, and, obviously, we have statutory and legislative provisions in place that require us to act in such a fashion. The judgment that I have come to on the matter is that this is the right balance to strike, given that, to ensure that we provide an entirely transparent picture, we will report on the fact that we have had a certain number of complaints. It is a matter of dialogue and scrutiny. The Government is trying to respond to legitimate calls for transparency. As I indicated in my earlier answer, if the committee judges that that is a step too far, I will of course listen to that feedback.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
No, I do not think that it sounds like “not proven”.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
We are in different language here, convener. It is about whether a complaint has been upheld—yes or no. If it has not been upheld, it does not have validity.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
Yes.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
Essentially, we need to have procedural arrangements in place that enable that to happen. Those arrangements did not exist prior to the changes that I am putting to the committee this morning.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme and Updated Complaints Policy
Meeting date: 22 November 2022
John Swinney
On that last point, yes, it is all former ministers.
In relation to cases where a complaint is not upheld, just to be absolutely clear, we would not publish any details about the case, other than the name of the minister and the fact that a complaint had not been upheld.
I will not say to the committee that I think that that is an absolutely certain judgment. I hope that I have left enough scope for the committee to consider the point. Indeed, Mr Lumsden, in his question, presented a different argument from the one that the convener and Liz Smith potentially present to me. I understand the arguments that are made. I have wrestled with those very questions, and I came down on the side of the preference for absolute transparency. However, I accept that there is an alternative argument that could be applied in these circumstances, and I will, of course, consider it should the committee make that point to me.
