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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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
It is not because you anticipate myriad complaints or anything like that? In fact, there are none at present—is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you. You mentioned staff training. I understand that 85 per cent of respondents to the 2022 people survey said that they were familiar with the organisation’s values. The next phase of the vision implementation will shift from awareness raising to behaviour change. What behaviours do you believe need to change?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you for that opening statement. I will start the questioning, after which I will bring in colleagues round the table.
When you wrote to us in January, you talked about how the continuous improvement programme would
“ensure that the updated complaints procedure is not seen in isolation but is set within a wider context that fosters a culture of openness and inclusion.”
What specific activities are being undertaken to foster a culture of openness, transparency and inclusion?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
There are no cases at this time, are there?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
That appears to have concluded questions from the committee. I thank the Deputy First Minister for coming to the committee to give evidence. As the second session has been cancelled due to a Covid-19 outbreak at Skills Development Scotland, that concludes the meeting. I thank you all for your contributions.
Meeting closed at 11:09.Finance and Public Administration Committee
Scottish Government’s Continuous Improvement Programme
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Kenneth Gibson
How have the staff received it?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
There are 700,000 Scots living and working in England, not to mention those who are overseas. If we are a strong and growing economy, perhaps fewer people would feel the need to move south or overseas.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
About a decade ago, after the financial crash, the FSB said that, without the small business bonus scheme, around one in six small businesses in Scotland would have gone bust, so the question is really about how effective it is relative to other potential measures.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Control of fuel duty and excise duty would also be very impactful.
We will conclude there. It has been quite a long session, and I would like to thank the minister and Mr Doig for the clarity of some of their answers, although there are still some issues on which the committee would like further information. We would appreciate correspondence on those matters.
That concludes the public part of today’s meeting. The next item on our agenda, which we will discuss in private, is consideration of a draft report on the resource spending review framework.
11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:43.Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Of course, we have to have a productive—and, in fact, increasingly productive—economy. It has to be increasingly productive per capita, because of the demographic challenge that we are facing.
Evidence from the Scottish Property Federation, as well as others, suggests that the projections around non-domestic rates are wholly unrealistic, because, for example, more and more people are moving to online shopping. I do not think that anyone really believes that, as far as high street spending is concerned, we will return to the situation pre-Covid, but the Scottish Government is still predicting a 25 per cent increase in revenues from that source over the next three or four years. How is that being addressed?
Moreover, if the Scottish Government maintains its budget at roughly the current levels, how will the tax system address major issues such as the social security shortfall if we do not generate the funds that the Scottish Government is predicting from non-domestic rates? In the document, you say that steps will be taken to grow the tax base. Will that mean additional taxes? Will it mean more people going to work and therefore more taxpayers? Frankly, that is what most of us would like to see. I am just wondering how you square those circles.
