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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 1208 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Thank you for those helpful answers.
Ms Congreve, in your written submission, you raise concerns about the use of data. For example, you say that the financial memorandum states that some of the estimates of inflation are taken from the Office for National Statistics but that you understood them to be from the Bank of England. Have you had that issue clarified with the Scottish Government? Have you asked the Government why it did not use the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts and, if so, did you get any clarity on that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Good morning. Just like the witnesses who attended the committee last week, you have each cited instances where you feel that there has not been sufficient detail to ensure that the numbers relate to the narrative. Have you been surprised by the extent of the lack of detail, given that the scale of the change and reform is significant? It is on the same scale as merging the police forces or college regionalisation.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Am I right in thinking that you raised the issue because you want much more clarity about not only the statistics but the rationale for using them? Is that what you are seeking?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Obviously, the health service is in difficult circumstances for many reasons. Would the bill have merit if those circumstances were easier—if we were not fighting Covid, other health issues, the cost of living and so on? Would it be the right thing to do?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Obviously, it will not be easy for the committee, and eventually the Parliament, to carry out the scrutiny that you have referred to if we are a little unsure about the source of the statistical analysis and the rationale for using it. In many ways, that makes our job just as difficult as yours is. I am interested to know whether you want that clarity in order to make a better assessment of the statistics.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Is it not also appropriate to have consistency as well, because that allows us to measure against a period of time, particularly given that, as we have mentioned today, it will be an on-going process for some time? Surely it is important to have consistency in the statistics against which you are measuring.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 1 November 2022
Liz Smith
Mr Roberts, you have been clear in your view that, although some of the principles behind the bill might be laudable, you do not think that it is the right thing to do at this juncture. Is that the view of your colleagues who are chief executives of other health boards? Is there a general feeling that, although you might like to do some of these things, that huge structural change is not appropriate just now?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Liz Smith
Do you accept that we have moved too quickly? Obviously, you have to take evidence from stakeholders who will be on the front line in delivering what will, in effect, be a new system. Would it have been better to take a slightly different approach to designing the bill so that we had a more substantial financial memorandum with greater detail than we have at present?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Liz Smith
That was helpful.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
National Care Service (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 25 October 2022
Liz Smith
I put on the record similar concerns to those that my three colleagues have spoken about so far. The financial memorandum is an important part of any bill or legislation, and it is important that, when we pass bills, they are good law. Good law has certain principles—namely, it has to have clarity of purpose, it has to be understood and it has to be workable, but it also has to have a strong evidence base. Although we are considering only the financial memorandum and not the wider policy commitments, the committee is struggling with the lack of an evidence base.
You have just given an answer to Michelle Thomson that makes it clear that work is being done on an on-going basis and that the information will be updated. Our problem is that we have to scrutinise the financial memorandum. Do you accept the criticism that has been levelled at you by the people who will give evidence later this morning and others who have provided written submissions? The convener described it as “excoriating” criticism. Do you accept that those people have a point and that there is not enough information for them to make a value judgment about how to proceed?
