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
Auditor General for Scotland (Work Programme)
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Richard Leonard
The final area that we want to cover before we finish up is the sponsorship of public bodies, which has been the subject of some discussion and evidence gathering at the committee over the past couple of years, in relation to concerns that we had about the Crofting Commission and more broadly.
The Scottish Government gave an undertaking last spring, I think, to have a review and we took evidence in the autumn of last year but it seems as though it is a continuing concern. At one point, you said that there might be an opportunity for a fundamental audit of the sponsorship arrangements. In the context of the work programme discussion, can you tell us where you are on that? It seems to be a recurring theme and we would like progress to be made on it.
11:15Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 11th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2023.
The first item on our agenda is to agree to take items 4, 5, 6 and 7 in private. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland”
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Agenda item 2 is an evidence session with the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland, Ian Bruce, on Audit Scotland’s section 22 report on the latest audit of the commissioner’s performance, which was published several weeks ago.
Towards the end of the committee’s previous evidence session on the report, we had some discussion about whether Ian Bruce is the accountable officer as well as the commissioner. For the record, I confirm that you are—that is correct, is it not?
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes, thanks. The broader questions, which we have touched on before, are around inequality and poverty, which are often the drivers of the demands that are placed on the national health service. So, there is a broader public health question and a societal question. We probably do not have time to go into that this morning, but it is an important thread that runs through the issue.
I will apply the handbrake and jump on to something else, which is related but quite different. In the report, you talk about the capital maintenance backlog budget. I know that it has been the focus of attention in previous years. Again, there is a long-standing critique of why it should be backlog maintenance rather than proactive maintenance. If maintenance is carried out on an on-going basis, it becomes less reactive and probably more cost effective. Again, that might be another debate for us to have.
In the report, you indicate that it is proposed to double investment in the capital maintenance backlog budget over the next five years. Given all the other pressures on spending in the national health service, how confident are you that that is an achievable goal?
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes, we will return to that next week and beyond. Craig Hoy has questions on one of the other topics that is important to the Parliament.
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
May I clarify something that probably stems from my ignorance? On the one hand, you talked, and I asked a question, about the increase in resources—an additional £4 billion over the past five or six years—but, on the other hand, the narrative in paragraph 24 of the report is about how health boards have to make savings. Can you reconcile the two for me? A record level of public money, £19 billion, is going into the national health service—not into the broader category of public health but into the national health service—yet, at the same time, there is a call on national and territorial NHS boards to make savings.
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes, absolutely. I am sure that we will return to that point.
I will move things on and turn to something that has been of interest to the committee, not only in this but in the previous session, and that is the financial position of individual territorial health boards. In the report, you suggest that, in your assessment of the 14 territorial health boards, only three are expected to break even, which means that 11 are not. I presume that that does not mean that they will make a surplus, but that they face a financial deficit. We know that, in the past, that led you to have to produce section 22 reports about health board conduct, because concerns were raised about the routes that people chose to go down to get additional resources.
How fit for purpose are the brokerage arrangements? The term “brokerage” is about an intervention by the Scottish Government to help out individual health boards. At one point, I think, it was based on a one-year time horizon; it then went to three years. Will you bring us up to date on the current position and say whether, in your estimation, those arrangements will be robust enough to get the health boards through the challenges that they face?
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. Without further ado, I invite the deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, to open the questioning.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 10th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2023.
The first item for committee members to consider is whether to take agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are we agreed to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
“NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 23 March 2023
Richard Leonard
The main agenda item is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s report on the national health service in Scotland in 2022. It was released exactly one month ago today. We are pleased to welcome the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle, to give evidence on that report. He is joined by executive director, Antony Clark; senior manager, Leigh Johnston; and senior auditor, Fiona Lees; all from Audit Scotland. You are all very welcome.
We have a large number of questions to put to you on what was an impactful report. Before we ask those questions, the Auditor General will make a short opening statement.
