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 2597 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
Looking at the overall picture, we can see that there have been quite comprehensive changes in WICS. There have been changes of personnel at senior level and changes in processes and almost everything you can think about. Have either WICS or the Scottish Government undertaken any assessment to determine the extent of the issues that have been reported in, for example, the section 22 report and the spin-off from that. Huge efforts have been required to address the issues. Have they impacted on the ability of WICS to perform its regulatory role? I am not sure who would want to come in on that.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
Coming back to the point, have you done any assessment as to its value for money?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
Yes, it is for the Scottish Government.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
What is the penalty?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
Maybe you could tell us a few.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
To be honest, the reasons that you are giving are fairly thin. There are many different ways—well, not many, but there are a few—to approach this. I speak from my experience in the private sector and, in general, I have never seen or heard of unlimited expenses—taking the cap off—and relying on individuals to decide whether something is value for money and to determine their own flights and all the rest of it. That does not happen.
12:15Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
I am relieved to hear that, but opening up a six-month window that could potentially allow a free for all does not sound like the best way forward. I would question why the audit and risk committee would even consider putting that forward to the board. To me that is also unheard of.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
Well, we can at least agree on that.
I have one final question. There have been a lot of changes within WICS, and big efforts have been made to bring WICS to the standard that is needed to ensure that all expenditure complies and represents value for money, and that there is also proper scrutiny and governance. Have the changes that have taken place been an overreaction? I do not know—I am just putting this to you. Often what happens when something goes wrong is that you immediately put layer after layer of scrutiny on it, to the extent that that scrutiny itself becomes something that is not value for money. What is your opinion on that?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
I will not go through the other issues step by step, because my colleagues will want to drill down into some of those areas, but, given the overall number of assessments, estimates and assumptions that are made, we cannot have an accurate tax figure—we just do not know.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Colin Beattie
To be clear, I am not suggesting that we would get more money out of the tax system if we had accurate figures, but, if we are to base our budgets on anything, the figures must be reasonably accurate in order to give us certainty for the future. My concern is that we will get lumpy adjustments every few years to take into account changes in all the estimates and assumptions, which is not desirable.
