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 2867 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
We have not really mentioned the fiscal framework, and the fact that it was agreed very rapidly, which was somewhat to the committee’s surprise because we expected a long, drawn-out battle. Was it agreed too hastily, Professor Bell?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
Professor Heald, do you want to comment on that? Furthermore, does the Scottish Government have too many priorities? That has been suggested to us.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
Okay. Thank you. I assume that we are not getting 34 minutes each, so I shall finish there.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
We have concentrated on how we can raise more tax for existing expenditure, and I am sympathetic to that but, to be a little bit of a devil’s advocate, are there areas of expenditure where we could make cuts? For example, compared to the UK, is the Scottish social security system too generous? The previous panel told us that making up the difference is having an effect on other services. Linked to that, has the Scottish Government got too many priorities? Should we be trying to simplify things and just have fewer of them? What about the idea that we are being too generous in, say, giving the bus pass to everyone? Should we means-test and target some of that expenditure?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
I note that your paper states that the index per capita method is better than the comparable model, but are we not still left competing with England—specifically, with London and the south-east of England, which dominates the English economy—and, therefore, are we not permanently at a disadvantage?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Sustainability of Scotland’s Finances
Meeting date: 19 September 2023
John Mason
We have heard from various places that we need a better public understanding of how budgets work. We have discussed whether, in the longer term, we should have more taxes and more spend or fewer taxes and less spend. We get the impression that in other countries—correct me if I am wrong, but I am thinking about the Nordic countries—there is a public debate on that and public agreement that they want higher taxes and better public services. Do you think that it is possible to have that debate in Scotland or the UK, Professor Bell?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
John Mason
The convener asked about whether things might be displaced. If a business goes to one of the green freeport sites instead of, say, Glasgow, that would mean less money coming into the Government.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Public Service Reform Programme
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
John Mason
That is helpful; thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
John Mason
Right. Could “Partial relief” mean a variety of levels?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
John Mason
I can understand if it is a piece of brownfield where something has been demolished and the land has just been sitting there—we certainly have that in Glasgow. From the Treasury’s point of view, is it quite black and white what is undeveloped and what is underdeveloped?
