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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 3298 contributions
|
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
The main item of business on our agenda this morning is further consideration of the report by the Auditor General “Fiscal sustainability and public sector reform in Scotland”. I am pleased to welcome our four witnesses, who join us in the committee room. We are joined by the permanent secretary, John-Paul Marks—good morning, permanent secretary. Alongside the permanent secretary, we have the director general strategy and external affairs, Joe Griffin, and the director general corporate, Lesley Fraser. We are also pleased to welcome back the director general Scottish exchequer, Alyson Stafford.
We have a number of questions to put to you on the report, following the evidence session that we had with the Auditor General before Christmas. However, before we get to those questions, I invite the permanent secretary to make an opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
If you will forgive me for saying so, “Less is more” also applies to some of the answers that we have been getting. We want concise responses to the questions that we have put to you and that we are going to put to you. That there are 33,000 words in the assessments is all very well, but when it comes to decisions that are being made about the delivery of public services, it is not at all clear to us on the evidence that we have taken—not just on the report that is before us but in general—whether there is a granular analysis of the difference that will be made to, for example, groups that are further away from getting access to public services.
We will review the 33,000 words in due course, but I think—
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
The deputy convener, Jamie Greene, will put some questions to you.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. On that note, permanent secretary, I thank you, Lesley Fraser, Joe Griffin and Alyson Stafford for your evidence this morning. In one or two areas, you are going to supply us with a little bit more information, which we would very much welcome, as well as looking forward to the medium-term financial strategy and the accompanying delivery report; I am sure that the committee and the Parliament as a whole will scrutinise and analyse that when it is produced. Thank you very much for your input this morning.
Permanent secretary, we wish you very well for the future. We may even see you again before the committee in your new role—who knows? Thank you for the co-operative way in which you have engaged with the committee since you arrived three years ago.
I move the meeting into private session.
11:41 Meeting continued in private until 12:12.Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
I will move things along now. I invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to you.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
Fifty-five thousand. I am sorry—less is more, as I keep saying. I am trying to take you at your word. We might get it down to 11,000 before the end of the meeting.
My point is that the fact that there are lots of words does not answer the point that is made both in the report and in some of the other evidence that has been presented to us, which is that insufficient attention is paid at the ground level—not as a retrospective add-on—to budget decisions, which is what we are speaking about in this context, and how they affect different groups in society differently.
We might return to some of those themes, but I will move on and invite Graham Simpson to put some questions to you.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
You have said that some publications will be produced over the next couple of months, and you have referred to the medium-term financial strategy. There was previous criticism from a range of parties, not least the Auditor General, that there did not seem to be any real reason why a medium-term financial strategy could not have been produced earlier. We have been told that there was a general election and then an autumn budget statement by the incoming Government, but the consensus seems to be that a strategy could have been produced.
Anyway, a strategy is coming out in May this year and there has also been reference to a fiscal sustainability delivery plan. Please give us a bit more detail about what level of information will be contained in those two pieces of work, why it is necessary to have two and what different roles they perform.
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
That was a very comprehensive answer—there is quite a lot to take in. It is only when we see written documentation that has been generated by that thinking that we will be able get a proper analysis of, and apply proper scrutiny to, what has been proposed.
Going back to what we do know, I note that key message number 1 in the report that we are considering this morning is, frankly, a criticism that the Government appears to be locked into a fairly short-term culture. That key message says:
“The Scottish Government continues to take short-term decisions, reacting to events rather than making fundamental changes to how public money is spent. This approach has so far been effective in balancing the budget”—
you made that point, Ms Stafford—
“but risks disrupting services at short notice and restricting progress towards better long-term outcomes for people.”
We have heard what you have told us, but what can you do to reassure us that there will be a change in culture from short-termism to at least medium-termism, if not long-termism?
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. We have questions to put to you over the course of this morning about many of the issues that you touched on in your opening statement. I want to go back to the report that the Auditor General produced: do you accept its findings, key messages and recommendations?
Public Audit Committee
“Fiscal sustainability and public reform in Scotland”
Meeting date: 5 March 2025
Richard Leonard
At the end of the parliamentary session, the Public Audit Committee will devise a legacy report, in which it will leave a series of recommendations, recollections and conclusions on what it thinks the committee in the next session should turn its attention to. Permanent secretary, you are about to step down from your post and move on to another post, with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. If you were to draw up a legacy report for your successor, what would be in it?
