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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 2597 contributions
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
Let us move on to another governance issue. The Auditor General made multiple references to gaps in climate governance linked to adaptation in his report and in his evidence to the committee on 18 May. What progress is the Scottish Government making on addressing gaps in governance and capacity linked to climate adaptation, ahead of producing the next climate adaptation programme?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
Is the Auditor General incorrect that the deputy director network is responsible for delivering on policies within the climate change plan update? Did it never have that responsibility?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
I have seen various figures for the money that will be needed to fund the transition, and all of them are eye watering. What seems to have been done so far is relatively small, compared to those figures. We will have to tap into huge sums of money—billions and billions—over a period. There will be competition for that money from everywhere.
How well developed are our links to private finance so that we ensure that Scotland receives its fair share of funding and can produce enough viable projects? Some projects are not necessarily profitable but nevertheless need to be done, which would imply public funding as opposed to private funding. How is that all being brought together? Is a group working on that by maintaining and developing relationships and contacts, and ensuring that there is a pipeline?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
I am sure that some of my colleagues will also have questions on that.
Let me move on to a more specific question. The Auditor General’s report describes the deputy director network as
“a key climate change governance body”
and states that it has responsibilities for delivering on the policies within the climate change plan update. However, it operates informally; there are no minutes of meetings. Is there a reason why there are no minutes of meetings? How are decisions taken, recorded and communicated?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
What is in people’s heads in deciding to produce no minutes? There are no minutes for a key board.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
So it is correct.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
On that, it appears that you still have a bit of a challenge ahead of you, but let me move on, as I am conscious of time.
The Verity house agreement, which was signed recently by the Scottish Government and local government, sets out how both parties will work together to deliver shared priorities, including on climate change. What impact, if any, will the new agreement have on the Scottish Government’s existing governance and risk management arrangements?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Colin Beattie
I will leave it at that.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Colin Beattie
Okay. Well, as I said in the debate:
“Governments are judged by what they do, not by what they say they do”.—[Official Report, 8 June 2023; c 75.]
I thank the cabinet secretary for giving evidence. It is greatly appreciated that you have done that yourself. I also thank Colin Cook and Kate Hall for joining you.
We will now take a short break to allow for a changeover of witnesses.
09:56 Meeting suspended.Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Colin Beattie
The assessment has already been made that adequate private capital is available globally, which to me seems a bit odd. Given that private capital is much in demand to finance our existing industries, it seems strange that there would be a massive surplus of capital waiting to come in. However, I realise that that was a global calculation. What is the calculation of the availability of capital in the Scottish and UK markets, for which we do not have to compete with other countries?