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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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Good. Craig Hoy will now ask some questions.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes. I do not think that I was suggesting that people are not working hard, permanent secretary; I was asking whether we are prioritising, whether the strategy is right and whether the leadership is there. Many of us remember the Christie commission, which had a full-scale agenda for reform involving early intervention, doing things differently and investing at the right time in order to have the most effective outcomes. Much of that remains underutilised. To quote the Auditor General again, I note that he has spoken at various times about the “implementation gap”. The stated aims are very worthy, but the question that we are bound to ask is what is going on out there on the ground.
We are short of time, so we will move on to questions from Craig Hoy.
10:15Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you. We have two or three more critical areas that we want to cover before the session ends. One of those is public sector reform, which I think Alison Cumming alluded to a few minutes ago.
We know that, following the resource spending review, last May or June, an outline of public sector reform priorities was set forward by the Government that spoke about
“New approaches to public services (such as the development of the National Care Service)”,
“Reforms to public sector capacity and pay”,
“Efficiencies for the public sector, including further use of shared services?and efficiencies in the management of the public sector estate”,
and
“Reform to Scotland’s 129 public bodies.”
What progress have you made with that agenda?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
I am afraid that you cannot get away with mentioning Prestwick airport without Willie Coffey wishing to come in with a question, so I invite him to put his point.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
The reason why that is important is not least that, as we reminded you last year when you had just arrived in your post, permanent secretary, it has been on-going since 2016. We were promised whole-of-public-sector consolidated accounts in 2016, and here we are in 2023 at stage 1. In his report, which we are discussing this morning, the Auditor General says:
“The continuing absence of a devolved public sector consolidated account means it is difficult to assess the overall health of Scotland’s public finances at a time of greatest need.”
There is quite an urgency—this is quite imperative. Will you reflect on that after today’s session? I do not sense the urgency that we think is necessary to be applied so that we can get a full picture of what we own and what we owe, which is the expression that the Auditor General has used.
I move on to another area, which is capital borrowing. Back in 2018, I think, the then chief financial officer—it was not you, Jackie McAllister, but one of your predecessors—was able to provide to the committee a list of assets that attracted capital borrowing. Is the Scottish Government able to provide a list of underlying assets for which it uses capital borrowing today?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Before we move off this point, can you help us understand whether the green freeport projects, of which there are two in Scotland, will be the subject of scrutiny and audit by the Auditor General for Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
The main business this morning is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s section 22 report on “The 2021-22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, along with his briefing on “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”.
It is almost exactly a year since we held our previous session on this subject, and I am pleased that, this time, all the witnesses are in the room with the committee. I am pleased to welcome the permanent secretary, John-Paul Marks. Alongside him from the Scottish Government are Colin Cook, director of economic development, Alison Cumming, director of budget and public spending, and Jackie McAllister, chief financial officer. Welcome to you all.
We have a range of questions to put to you, but, before we get to them, I invite the permanent secretary to make a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the sixth meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2023. The first item for the committee’s consideration is to agree to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private. Are we all agreed to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
On that positive note, I draw this morning’s evidence session to a close. I thank the witnesses—the permanent secretary, Colin Cook, Jackie McAllister and Alison Cumming—for their input. We did not quite get to some areas because of time, but we might follow those up in writing, if that is okay, and I think that you have undertaken to look at some of the issues that we have raised in the session and come back to us. I thank you very much for your time and your contributions.
10:35 Meeting continued in private until 14:00.Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2021/22 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts” and “Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 23 February 2023
Richard Leonard
Can you tell us more about the timescales that you work to for your borrowing? The fiscal framework has a default position of 10 years, has it not? Do you look at shorter or longer periods than that? How do you come to settle on that?
