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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 1691 contributions
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Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
You have given me a lot of helpful information about what you are doing in your various phases, but I must admit that I am not any clearer on the governance model and who specifically is ultimately accountable for GFIB’s output.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
Okay. Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. We have touched on some of the themes that I will ask about, in terms of the role and involvement of the local community. Last week, we had some quite compelling evidence from Grangemouth including Skinflats community council, which talked about how the community feels as though it bears the weight of providing all that gross domestic product to the Scottish economy but gets no benefit.
Derek, I think that you said—you referenced Celtic Renewables and so on—that you are already investing in local companies. In terms of your impact assessment vis-à-vis the benefits to the local community, can you talk me through the process that you use? In other words, what did you specifically do to ensure that the benefit was felt in the community? I totally appreciate that you have a wider perspective as well.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
You must have guessed what my next question was going to be, because you alluded to conditionality. I paraphrase, but the sense from the community was that a lot of the activity that was going on was well intentioned in terms of including the community and having a community focus at its heart, but that it lacked substance. What are the circumstances in which you think it would be a good idea to put some conditionality around the funds that you provide? What would that look like and where would you see that working in order to make sure that the community is at the heart of what you do?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
I absolutely understand about the principles of fair work. The discussion that you suggest would be helpful because you are at the coal face and you are monitoring the existing investments. The discussion is about your suggestions for how those principles can be deepened to put the community at the heart of things.
I will turn to SNIB. As you explained, you have not made investments, but how would you, by way of your impact assessment, ensure that the community is at the heart of things? To what extent is there a conflict when, obviously, you are skiting across the top looking at a return on your investment and at your debt to equity ratios and so on? I appreciate that this is in principle, given what you said earlier.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Just Transition (Grangemouth Area)
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
Tell me a bit more about your involvement. Also, what is your understanding of GFIB’s governance model?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
You point out that, if civil servants were seeking clarity, they would need to know that the issue was considerably more complex than it might initially have appeared. That is part of the challenge in getting value from our inquiry. We need to understand the culture and the extent to which such activity is prevalent. Frankly, given what you said about risk taking, it is easier to just come back with a paper. We are talking about civil servants here, because ministers will take advice and accept advice. The issue is about not just capacity but the skills base among civil servants—you made a comment about being agile earlier—and continual improvement, because this is very difficult.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
There is an idea, linked to empowerment and accountability, which was brought up earlier. When I was reading your report, I thought about the cultural hierarchy within the wider decision framework being underpinned by relative power bases, which vary, depending on the seniority and power base of the relevant minister. That relates to where that minister fits into Government and the power base of whoever is the ultimate accountable authority. It would be useful to hear your general reflections on how that power can inhibit decision making, particularly in a wider context when a decision requires to be made quickly, which, as we know, also affects the processes.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
That is an interesting area for wider consideration.
In the committee, we keep quoting Rumsfeld in relation to “unknown unknowns”. With regard to a Government making an honest assessment of its decision-making capabilities, I sense that there is a disconnect. You said that there is relatively little engagement with academics on best practice. To what extent do you consider it a risk that Governments do not know what they do not know? If they do not ask questions and engage with best practice and other methodologies, they will never know what they do not know.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Effective Scottish Government Decision Making
Meeting date: 14 March 2023
Michelle Thomson
I have a supplementary question. To what extent do the lack of rationality and the uncertainty, as depicted very effectively by your diagram, suggest that we should almost be applying chaos theory to decision making in Government? It is a serious question.
