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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 2341 contributions
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Willie Coffey
I want to round off the conversation about the backlog maintenance picture. Is that picture clear enough? Is the backlog maintenance subject to being pushed out to longer timescales? Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete has entered the debate. Are we clear enough about the extent of public buildings that may or may not contain RAAC that is in a condition of concern?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Willie Coffey
Thanks for that.
With regard to the challenges that we face, is extending and pushing out the timescale for delivery actually assisting in helping deliver projects? Is using the same money over a longer term helpful or is it something that we should be concerned about?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Willie Coffey
Finally, you mentioned three other important factors driving up construction costs, which have already resulted in increased costs for eight out of the 45 projects that you have mentioned, a significant number of delays and so on. For the record, can you explain to the committee what those three factors are?
09:30Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Willie Coffey
The risks that you have mentioned surely do not apply to Kilmarnock in the same way that they would apply to Barlinnie.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2023
Willie Coffey
Okay. We will have to come back to that issue, because it is really important that we understand what that means in terms of hard cash for all the projects that members and the public will be interested in.
The briefing paper also says that the Government has been unable to budget for financial transactions after 2024-25. What is the reason behind that? Is it just because of the uncertainty of the allocation?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Willie Coffey
Are there other views on national guidance on local implementation and decision making? Does the panel feel that that is the best approach?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Willie Coffey
Any other views?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Willie Coffey
Will you just divvy up the funds by five?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Willie Coffey
Good morning. Can you offer a few thoughts on the issue of the wild camping and motorhome fraternity throughout Europe? You will have heard lots of discussion at committee, both today and last week, about that particular issue and the fact that such visitors would not be subject to the levy and that it would indeed be very difficult to apply it to them. What happens in Europe with regard to campers and motorhome users? Do they pay a visitor levy? How does that work?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Willie Coffey
Yes. I had hoped to ask about the cruise ship levy. The Scottish Government has announced that it intends to include such a levy in the legislation. Are you able to share any experience in that respect from our European friends? Does it work? If so, how? Is it successful or otherwise?