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
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Daniel Johnson wants to come back in on that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Amendment 1, in the name of the cabinet secretary, is grouped with amendments 2 and 3.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Yesterday, you wrote to give members an update on Covid-19 omicron business support, on which you have also answered a written question from me. In your letter, you outlined all the money that has been allocated across more than a dozen sectors—from hospitality businesses to museums, galleries and heritage and even the weddings sector. You said:
“Decisions on the allocation of the remaining funds will be confirmed shortly following analysis and consultation with affected sectors on how it can best be targeted, particularly in light of requests for funding to focus now on recovery work.”
Thank you for yesterday’s letter. When can those decisions be expected?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I think that we could have guessed that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I am glad that you mentioned outcomes. When I asked the SFC about the ÂŁ764 million likely overspend within three years with regard to social security, I asked whether the spending of that resource on social security now would have an impact on reducing poverty. The SFC did not seem to think that it would have much of an impact on reducing poverty. The outcome needs to focus on that. If we are spending a lot of money on social security, surely that is about trying to lift people out of poverty and back into work.
I have a final point. Obviously, I have taken up quite a bit of time. I would like to be able to take more time, but I realise that I have colleagues who are keen to come in.
We covered preventative spend in paragraphs 126 and 130 of our report. You have given a detailed and robust response on that, which I am sure members of the committee appreciate—I certainly do. You have talked about areas of preventative spend, from youth justice and developing the young workforce to the national care service and keeping the Promise. You have also talked about tackling long-standing and deep-rooted inequalities, including investing at least £500 million over this session of Parliament to create a whole family wellbeing fund, investing £200 million in adult upskilling, and spending in a number of other areas of expenditure.
The question that I want to ask is one that we have often asked over many years. John Mason will remember that we asked it of your predecessor John Swinney during the 2011 to 2016 session of Parliament. In what areas will disinvestment take place in order to fund all that? Some outcomes are clearly not what we would desire and some areas of public expenditure are not delivering as we would wish. Are there any less effective programmes that are, in effect, being discontinued and put to one side in order that the funding that I mentioned—and, indeed, the other funding that is detailed in your response to the report—can be invested as you have suggested?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning. In your letter to me of 29 January 2022, you said that the ÂŁ120 million was:
“only possible following an update in recent days from the UK Treasury regarding our 2021-22 funding”
and that
“this £120 million is not being allocated in 2021-22”.
You also said:
“I appreciate this contingency on the UK fiscal cycle is challenging for scrutiny of the Scottish Budget, and would reiterate that it is no less challenging for the Scottish Government’s own financial and policy planning.”
Will you confirm that it is new money?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 1 February 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Michelle Thomson wants to come in.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. This morning, we will take evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery on progress in delivering the actions in the Scottish Government’s implementation plan from June 2021, which is part of its response to the findings of three recent harassment investigations, and an updated complaints procedure for handling formal complaints by civil servants regarding the behaviour of a minister or former minister.
The Deputy First Minister is accompanied, from the Scottish Government, by Lesley Fraser, director general corporate; and Ian Mitchell, deputy director for propriety and ethics.
Today’s scrutiny falls within the public administration element of the committee’s remit. The evidence session will therefore focus on the lessons that have been learned, the actions that have been taken and the progress that has been made by the Scottish Government in response to the findings of the three investigations that concluded last year, rather than on revisiting the events that led up to them. We have about 90 minutes for the discussion.
I welcome the Deputy First Minister and his officials to the meeting. I thank him for advance sight of his opening statement, and I ask him to put those remarks on the record.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I have a final question before I bring in colleagues around the table. You wish to have the process in place—more or less, but not fully—by the end of this year. Why will it take such a long time? I realise that culture might not change, but surely processes can change a bit more quickly than that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Implementation Plan Progress and Updated Complaints Procedure
Meeting date: 25 January 2022
Kenneth Gibson
The schematic diagram to which you referred says that, for example, building
“complaint investigation capability, to ensure confidence of those participating”
and
“Staff training on grievance policy and best practice refresh”
will not be achieved until December this year, so there are still a number of steps to be taken. There are other issues to be addressed beyond December, such as a
“Review of the processes in use, including Propriety & Ethics”.
Do you envisage that the process will not end as such and that it will be about continuous development?
