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
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
We have had discussions in the context of the section 22 report into South Lanarkshire College about what the point is of regional boards and whether the structure in the sector is too top heavy, with the Scottish Funding Council, regional boards, college boards, principals—now principals/chief executive officers, as many of them describe themselves—vice principals, assistant principals and so on. There are some big questions there, are there not, about whether the management and governance of the sector are as effective as they could be?
10:00Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. That concludes our questions. The evidence session has raised important issues, as I said earlier, about the financial state of the college sector in Scotland in 2022 and whether it is delivering the outcomes that we all want to see for students.
I thank the Auditor General, Mark McCabe and Carolyn McLeod for their evidence; it has been very helpful, and we shall consider our next steps.
I close the public part of the meeting.
10:01 Meeting continued in private until 11:28.Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
In part, it might be a result of the timing of different surveys. I see that Mark McCabe is nodding at that.
Willie Coffey has more questions in this area.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
The principal item on our agenda this morning is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s briefing on “Scotland’s colleges 2022”. Our witnesses from Audit Scotland, who are in the committee room, are: the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle; Carolyn McLeod, audit director, performance audit and best value; and Mark McCabe, audit manager. You are all very welcome.
Auditor General, as you know, you should feel free to bring in your supporting wing members at the points at which you would find it most useful to do so and when that would be most enlightening for the committee. I ask you to kick off by giving a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. We have questions that touch on all the areas that you have outlined in your opening statement, which is very helpful in setting the scene.
The most striking expression that is used in the briefing—it is used twice—is that the finances are “healthier than expected”, although it is clear that Scotland’s colleges are still in a precarious financial position. Could you say a little more about the “healthier than expected” position? Colleges are viewed by many people as public sector institutions, and most public sector institutions were not eligible to qualify for the coronavirus job retention scheme or furlough moneys, for example, or for other Covid grants that were available to businesses. Could you explain a little more about how it came to pass that Scotland’s colleges drew down on that money to such an extent that you offer that as an explanation of their financial position being rosier than might otherwise have been expected?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
Auditor General, you have mentioned real-terms cuts. I presume that that is based on a multiyear forecast of what inflation will be. That is a bit of a stab in the dark, is it not? At the moment, the retail prices index is more than 12 per cent. In the context of the multiyear funding award, we could be looking at quite a drastic real-terms cut in funding.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
Before I bring Colin Beattie in, I want to have a look at one other area: Brexit. There have been periods in the past when Scotland’s colleges have been able to draw on European social funds and other streams of support from the European Union. That support is no longer available or is being tapered out of the system completely. In its place, we are offered the United Kingdom shared prosperity fund. Will that find its way through to Scotland’s colleges in the way that European Union funds did? Given that it is likely to be administered by, or go to, local authorities, what expectation is there that that money will reach the further education sector?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
I invite Colin Beattie to ask some questions about the sector’s financial sustainability.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s colleges 2022”
Meeting date: 22 September 2022
Richard Leonard
We move to questions from Craig Hoy.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “New vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides: Arrangements to deliver vessels 801 and 802”
Meeting date: 8 September 2022
Richard Leonard
However, you know that the Scottish public finance manual says:
“The essence of the Accountable Officer’s role is a personal responsibility for the propriety and regularity of the finances under their stewardship”.
So the buck stops with you, does it not?
