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 893 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Craig Hoy
There is quite a big differential in LBTT between Scotland and the rest of the UK. In terms of the pre-compliance work and any subsequent recovery work, is there a difference between the patterns of behaviour that you see north and south of the border?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Liz. It is nice to see you.
I have a quick question about the estimates in the financial memorandum. You say that the assumption in the bill is that around 60,000 pupils would receive residential outdoor education, but you also identify a range of between 55,000 and 65,000 pupils, which is a range of about 18 per cent. With regard to the cost estimates in the financial memorandum, there is a 66 per cent spread. You said at the outset that, on the basis of what you have heard in evidence, you think that the top end of that spectrum probably represents the most realistic estimate. Where do you think that that range is likely to be? Are we now talking about a 20 per cent range towards the top end? There is quite a big spread—a 66 per cent spread—when it comes to the potential costs.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Revenue Scotland
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Craig Hoy
If 4.65 per cent was the lowest increase, what was the highest increase that someone in the organisation would have received?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
In terms of in-year this year and looking forward to next year, what calculations did you make in relation to public sector head count, and are you on track? I note that, for example, in March 2023-24, the devolved civil service grew by 1.9 per cent, other public bodies by 2.8 per cent, the NHS, understandably, by 3.4 per cent and public operations by 6.1 per cent. Will the size of the public sector at the end of this year be what you have forecast and factored in?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Yes.
Finally, as Mr Marra identified, you have ended up being quite lucky in the sense that the money came in to plug what was, as you conceded, a growing gap. From the Scottish Government’s budgeting and processes perspective, what lesson have you learned out of this year about what you would not repeat in future years?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Finally, looking to the budget on 4 December, you were quite accurate, or quite lucky, in your planning assumptions in factoring in what you got in-year for this year. Is the £3.5 billion for next year broadly in line with what you had factored in in your expectations?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Will that be reported in the SBR? Do you have any projections on how you are doing against that target of £60 million?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
On a wider point about public sector pay, the size of the public sector in Scotland is another thing that contributes to the long-term issues that you face. Do the consequentials meet the increased salaries that Scottish public sector workers earn and the fact that there is a higher percentage per capita of public sector workers in Scotland, or do you have to look to other budgets to address the issue?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Fine. In relation to public pay policy, can you say how much of that £1.433 billion will go into what I would call public service delivery and how much will go into public sector pay and pensions? The ABR is littered with references to increased pension contributions and public sector pay. I know that public sector workers contribute to public sector delivery but, just for clarity, can you produce a breakdown of where that £1.433 billion is going between public services and public sector pay and pensions?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Craig Hoy
Looking at the ABR announcement, I see that you identified £65 million of savings in measures that would not proceed, additional emergency measures that would save £188.4 million and up to a further £60 million of savings that are anticipated to be generated through the emergency spending controls. Will you still proceed with the additional £60 million that presumably would have come into the SBR?
