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 3264 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed.
Do you accept and agree with the findings and recommendations of the Auditor General for Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
Okay. Obviously, as the Public Audit Committee, we are interested in the public accountability of the service, and the only way for us to achieve that is to have the data and that degree of transparency. You might share our frustration, but I re-emphasise to you that we think that it is extremely important, because, for many people, general practice is their access point to the national health service.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
I am sorry to labour the point, but what is the budget, for example, for the Larbert site? What is the budget for the NHS Golden Jubilee site? Where do they now sit?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
The financial memorandum has been questioned by the Auditor General, and it was also questioned pretty heavily by the Finance and Public Administration Committee, which told you that you needed to go back and do your sums again and come back with a revised financial memorandum. I cannot remember a time when it was necessary for a Government department to revise its financial memorandum because it was seen to be so out of sync with what people estimated the costs would be. Do you feel embarrassed about that?
09:30Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
You accept, though, that there has been a delay.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
Okay, but the Audit Scotland report came out in February, yet, just two days ago, in this Parliament, the chief executive of NHS Dumfries and Galloway told the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee:
“I have worked in the NHS since the 1980s. I am a finance director by background and I have never seen a position as challenging as this.”
He then went on to speak about
“an existential challenge to our current service models”.
He also said:
“technically, I cannot afford one in 10 of my workforce”.—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 2 May 2023; c 13-14.]
There is severe pressure on territorial health boards, is there not? It looks a bit more like the picture painted by Audit Scotland than the one that you have painted for us this morning.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
Okay. If, for example, the NHS Golden Jubilee site is open by the end of the year, how does that compare with when you expected it to be open when the construction work was originally procured?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
Okay. A lot of this morning’s discussion will be about the financial pressures on the national health service. Caroline Lamb, you are the accountable officer responsible for £19 billion of public money, so it is quite important that we get an understanding that you are on top of the pressures that you face. I will turn to Craig Hoy, who has some questions to put to you.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
This next question might be for Caroline Lamb. One of the criticisms, or part of the analysis, in the Audit Scotland report is that one of the flaws in the NHS recovery plan, which was launched in August 2021, was that it did not come as a result of proper consultation with the territorial health boards. There was a commitment—perhaps a political commitment—that, within 100 days of the election in 2021, the NHS recovery plan would be published, but the consequence of that, according to the analysis in the Audit Scotland report, is that the health boards were not involved. Is that a matter of regret for you?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Richard Leonard
That pretty much brings us to the close of the session. There are two things in the report that I want to highlight, on which I would welcome your views. One is the agenda for reform. The clear message from the Auditor General is that the level of funding for the NHS is at a record level—£19 billion—yet we continue to see suboptimal outcomes. I guess that the debate about what we need to do to change and reconfigure services is central to that.
Some of this goes back to the Christie commission of over 10 years ago and what it said about having a preventative agenda and taking a broader view of public health, rather than just having a view of the institution of the national health service. That rests on public debate and engagement, so, in closing, it would be useful to find out your perspective on that and what your plans are in that regard.
The other issue is related to that. One of the key recommendations in the report—you said that you accepted the recommendations—was that you publish annual progress updates on service reform. Is it your intention to do that?
