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 3443 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Major Information and Communications Technology Projects
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Leonard
For my final question, I again turn to the summary of projects that you issued to us back in July. Forgive me, but one project in that caught my eye: the replacement and enhancement of the CalMac Ferries booking system. I think that that was started in 2016, but the date set on the note for completion and, I presume, for going live was November 2022. We are now in December. Can you assure us that that system is now live?
Public Audit Committee
Major Information and Communications Technology Projects
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Agenda item 2, which is the principal item on our agenda this morning, is consideration of the Scottish Government’s latest update on major information and communications technology projects, which is something that the committee routinely receives.
I welcome to the meeting our Scottish Government witnesses: Sharon Fairweather, director of internal audit and assurance; Geoff Huggins, director of digital; and Yorath Turner, deputy director, digital people, strategy and corporate services, digital directorate. You are welcome, Yorath, and I hope that your salary reflects the length of your job title.
As there will be no opening statement, we will go straight to questions.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 30th meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Does the committee agree to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Major Information and Communications Technology Projects
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay, I will look keenly at the language that is used in that regard.
Public Audit Committee
Major Information and Communications Technology Projects
Meeting date: 8 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Do you not think that primary legislation would be required to do that?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Craig Hoy has a supplementary question on that.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Before we turn to Craig Hoy, who has some questions about public sector reform, I want to interrogate a little the idea that, traditionally, certain parts of Government expenditure are protected at a time when there is a retrenchment in finances. We have had briefings and statements in Parliament about the areas that the Government is prioritising, but I wonder whether you have detected, in the work that you have been doing in this area, any sense that there has been any movement or shifting of resources between one protected area and another or within a protected area—or, indeed, that the protections are being reviewed.
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Richard Leonard
That is helpful.
Turning to the autumn statement, what difference do the key points that were made by the chancellor in the autumn statement make to any conclusions that you have made in the briefing that we are considering this morning?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Let us look at the Barnett consequentials element. You make the point in the briefing that, if the Scottish Government—or the Scottish Parliament—wishes to allocate additional help to alleviate the cost of living crisis, the Government will need to find it from its own resource rather than necessarily or even at all relying on Barnett consequentials. Will you perhaps elaborate on that?
Public Audit Committee
“Scotland’s public finances: Challenges and risks”
Meeting date: 1 December 2022
Richard Leonard
Okay. Do you have any idea when the end point will be reached? Have you had any indication from the permanent secretary or any other part of the Government about where that is?
