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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 1222 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Liz Smith
Minister, in last Wednesday鈥檚 national care service debate, you said that, should the bill pass, it will involve a huge change to social services, and you have just repeated that comment. In that debate, you also said that you were keen to set out the principles and that those ought to be heavily scrutinised. You cited financial sustainability as a key principle.
How are we supposed to engage in that scrutiny if we do not have anything like the detail that we need in the financial memorandum, for the reasons that Michelle Thomson and the convener have cited? I think that you have to admit that many stakeholders are deeply unhappy that they do not have the relevant detail to undertake sufficient scrutiny.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Liz Smith
Mr Stewart, I do not think that it is simply a case of having conversations. The committee is asking for, and the Parliament will ask for, further detail. I completely understand that you could never put out a full set of estimates, but too many people鈥攚hether witnesses who have given evidence to us or those who have produced commentaries on the bill鈥攈ave made it clear that it is extremely difficult to provide the best forecast of costs, because the Scottish Government has not provided sufficient detail.
That makes it very difficult for us to carry out scrutiny, the importance of which you raised in last week鈥檚 debate in Parliament, when you set out the laudable aims of the bill. You made it clear that our job is to scrutinise the bill, and you are right about that. Forgive me for saying so again, but we cannot do that unless there is adequate information on which to base the scrutiny. Do you accept that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Liz Smith
I understand that, but to ensure that we deliver first-class services for people, we need to have some structures. The Scottish Government is proposing that a structure that is vastly different from the existing one should be put in place. That may have merit but, for us to be persuaded of that merit, it is surely incumbent on the Scottish Government to set out as much detail as it possibly can to help us along the way and to persuade us that the change that it wants to make is not only desirable, based on the laudable aims that you have set out, but that it is actually workable and deliverable. At the moment, far too many people around the country are telling us that they have serious concerns about what they will be asked to do to make that work and about whether the costs are applicable.
Do you at least accept that there is genuine concern and that that is another reason why the bill should be paused for the time being?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 8 November 2022
Liz Smith
My final question is about a comment by someone who is on the front line and who spoke to our committee on behalf of the chief executives of NHS boards. I think that he very much agrees with the principles of some of the things that you are trying to deliver, but he was nonetheless very sceptical about whether those could be delivered, particularly at the moment, when the NHS is facing so many difficulties and when there is absolutely no spare room in the NHS. He is telling you that NHS bosses are not happy about the workability of the bill. Do you accept what he says? That was Ralph Roberts.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
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
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
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鈥攊f 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
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
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
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?