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 3464 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
As we are on the subject of roads, I am not going to ask about a local bypass in my region or anything like that, but a broader and probably more profound point here is how you deal with competing interests. There is, of course, pressure for road building, road enhancements and so on, but such things might not be carbon neutral or carbon negative—they might be adding to emission levels. How do you reconcile the competing demands placed on you?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Okay. I think that cohesion is what we are after here. We are looking for cohesion in the operational side as well as the administrative side to make sure that we maximise the opportunities.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Is that capital or revenue, or both?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Time permitting.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Thank you. That was a very useful introduction to that area. It sparks off in my thought process the idea that we might want to have an evidence session just on that, because it is a big area, and it will get bigger over the next few years.
We are short on time, but the deputy convener has a final question or two about maintenance backlog and estate issues.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much for that answer. We are right out of time. I apologise. You might be exhausted, but we have not exhausted our questions, and we might wish to put some of them in writing to you as a follow-up.
I thank Alyson Stafford, Alison Cumming, Peter Reekie, Alan Morrison, Alison Irvine and Morag Angus for their contributions. Their evidence has been very helpful, and it is part of a continuing dialogue that we have around many of those areas, which are very much of interest for the Public Audit Committee.
I draw the public part of the meeting to a close. The committee will go into private session.
11:26 Meeting continued in private until 11:39.Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the eighth meeting in 2024 of the Public Audit Committee.
The first item of business on our agenda was to consider our work programme in private, which we have now successfully done.
Agenda item 2 is a decision whether to take agenda items 4 and 5 in private. Does the committee agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
I hope that you are not going to test me, director general.
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Members of the committee will probe those issues in a bit more detail.
During the evidence session that we had with the Auditor General in November, he welcomed the single Scottish estate approach as a useful first step, but it was pretty clear from what he told us that he felt that it fell short of what was really required. In other words, operational buildings are not part of that approach, or certainly were not at the point at which he was putting together his briefing. Do you have any reflections on that? His view, which the committee shares, is that it is important that consideration is given to how the whole estate can be properly used and maximised.
In recent weeks, we have taken evidence about the fact that parts of our infrastructure—whether in our prisons or the health service—are reaching the end of their lives; in many cases, they have gone beyond the end of their expected lives. How are you approaching the development of a single Scottish estate approach that also takes into account the operational buildings?
Public Audit Committee
“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Richard Leonard
Can I pick you up on the point about different governance arrangements? Are you saying that they are an impediment and that they prevent you from doing that, or are you saying something different?
