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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 3231 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Major Capital Projects
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
That would be helpful.
I am conscious of the fact that Bill Reeve has not had many opportunities to come in, because all these people are asking about bypasses and roundabouts. Let me finish up with a question about the East Kilbride rail enhancement. The briefing that has been given to us describes the project as having been enhanced in size. However, my mailbag tells me that it has gone from being a project that includes dualling of the track to one that retains a single track, so the people of East Kilbride are not very happy about the project as it stands. They see it as being a diminution of the original project. In fact, as recently as yesterday, I saw a letter that was sent by the leader of South Lanarkshire Council to the transport minister, complaining about that very fact. Can you explain why it is seen as an enhancement and where additional scope is involved? The empirical evidence that I get on the ground is that it is the opposite of that.
Public Audit Committee
Major Capital Projects
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Excellent. On that positive note for public transport, I will draw this session to a close. Bill Reeve, Helen Carter and Lawrence Shackman, thank you very much indeed for your time this morning. I think that there are one or two points that we want to follow up, and we will do that. Thank you very much indeed.
I now draw this public session of the committee’s deliberations to a close, and we will move into private session.
11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:44.Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you. The deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, has a series of questions.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
But when that advice was overridden, you did not consider your position at that point.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
I am trying to establish whether there was a boycott.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Was your non-attendance because of a lack of spaces, or was it because you had misgivings about the announcement or you felt that it would compromise the negotiations that you were involved in?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
So it was a case of, “When is an invitation not an invitation?â€
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
There was an internal email, issued on 20 August, that recommended that Mr Mackay lead on the announcement, but you are saying that, by the next day, there had been an intervention that meant that the First Minister was leading on the announcement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Had you been available to attend, would you have attended?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802â€
Meeting date: 30 June 2022
Richard Leonard
Interestingly, since January, you have been the chair of David MacBrayne Ltd, so you have gone from being part of the client body to being the chair of the body that will receive and operate the ferries.
