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 3314 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Canals”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
I think that Joanne Brown has frozen. I do not think that we can fix that. Auditor General, do you want to say anything else?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Canals”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
There are other circumstances in which a valuation might be applied prior to a change of ownership. That has happened in the past. With ScotRail, for example, where the ownership of the franchise is changing, would you expect some kind of fixed asset register to be provided on the transfer date, so that the Scottish Government, in taking on the assets, would know what Abellio was handing over to it?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Canals”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you. We are out of time. I thank the Auditor General for providing us with a useful insight into the report. I thank Joanne Brown, who joined us online, and Graeme Greenhill for their evidence, which has given us a lot of food for thought.
The meeting will now move into private session.
11:20 Meeting continued in public until 11:42.Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you. In Parliament there is a lot of debate around inputs but there is not necessarily sufficient concentration on the outcomes, so that is very helpful.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Mr Cook, do you want to come in?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
On 27 January, we took evidence from the Auditor General, who described the deal between the Scottish Government and the GFG Alliance as a “complex transaction”. He said that
“there is an increasing likelihood that the guarantee will be called upon.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 27 January; c 9.]
Is that a strong position?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
I will move on in a second, but I underline the fact that it is a quadrupling, within the space of a year, of the assessment of the exposure to risk. If that was my personal financial situation, I would be alarmed at such an increase in my expected or assessed exposure to financial risk. Is the Scottish Government not alarmed by the quadrupling of that exposure?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
To move things along, I invite Craig Hoy to ask some questions.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
There has also been considerable public interest in another one of the Government’s financial arrangements—the one with the Gupta Family Group Alliance. The Audit Scotland report focuses on the Lochaber aluminium smelter deal. What is the Scottish Government’s total financial exposure in relation to that deal?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of Scottish Canals”
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you. That was really helpful.
I understand that Scottish Canals changed its status from being a public corporation to being a non-departmental public body, which led to a change in its accounting requirements, but does Scottish Natural Heritage or Scottish Water have a fixed asset register? Will ScotRail need to have a fixed asset register in the future? Where does Scottish Canals sit in the spectrum of organisations in that regard?
