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 2443 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
Without commenting on the examples that have been given, it is important to differentiate between situations in which there have been individual projects that have been tremendously successful and those in which there has been a comprehensive town centre plan involving the whole community and so on that has been brought to fruition to make that step change and difference. Phil Prentice, could you comment on that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
I am sure that that would be useful.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
During this discussion we have been talking about various initiatives. There has been discussion about the need for incentives and about business rates and the potential need for rates relief to provide support. There has been talk about online retailers and levelling of the playing field by bringing in a digital sales tax, potentially.
Noting all that, and considering the people who have been putting forward and driving those initiatives, can they survive in the long term without a public subsidy to support them in some form?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
I was talking about long-term subsidy.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
The committee has heard repeatedly that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to supporting our town centres. It has also been said repeatedly that, in order to succeed, we need to successfully bring together local communities and businesses. We have asked for examples of that—even just one—that stand out as a success, but no one has been able to point to any. Do the witnesses have any examples of effective collaboration between the public, private and third sectors and local communities that has achieved a success story in a town centre?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
During the various committee meetings, and from the information that we have received from witnesses—including yourselves—I have been struck by the fact that both local and national Government need to provide some financial support, certainly in the initial stages. There is talk about the need for business rate relief and about evening up the competition between online providers and local providers by bringing in a digital sales tax. To what extent are the models that we are looking at dependent, in the long term, on some form of external subsidy? Is there a point at which businesses become self-sustaining and are there milestones leading to that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 20 April 2022
Colin Beattie
Not necessarily, but maybe Kirkcaldy. I do not know.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Colin Beattie
To go back to funding arrangements, your 2009 report says that such arrangements are “complex and fragmented”; the situation seems to be unchanged, according to your latest briefing. What is the impact on delivery of services because of those funding arrangements? How can the Scottish Government make improvements in that area?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Colin Beattie
Obviously, everybody is very concerned about the issue, which is a big issue for Scotland and something that we have to tackle. Can we take any comfort from the fact that fewer young Scots are using drugs and alcohol? I realise that, among older people, there has been an increase, but can we take some comfort from the fact that, among younger people who would be getting into drugs and alcohol for the first time, drug and alcohol use is reducing? Also, in the first nine months of 2021 versus 2020, there was a 4 per cent drop in the number of deaths. Is it too soon to think that that is a trend that is resulting from some of the initiatives that have been taken?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Colin Beattie
It is.
I will carry on the theme of funding. My next question is about transparency, which you raise in paragraph 17 of your report. Is it inevitable that transparency is difficult to exhibit when funding is so fragmented and there are so many stakeholders? Is the solution to the complexity of the funding also the solution to the transparency?