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 2023/24 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Graham Simpson has been able to join us, and I will bring him in in a moment to ask the final few questions. Before I do that, I turn to the final section of the section 22 report, which is headed “Performance reporting”. It starts off with your usual diplomatic tone, Auditor General, when you say:
“The complicated landscape of priorities is hindering the achievement of outcomes”.
However, when we go on to look at paragraphs 66 and 67, you are a bit harder hitting. You say:
“There is an absence of clearly defined performance measures with measurable targets for all priority areas.”
You also say that
“It is unacceptable that six indicators for the previous NPF remain in development.”
That is quite a stiff judgment. What are the reasons that the Scottish Government gives for those deficiencies?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Richard Leonard
As I mentioned earlier, we may well invite the Scottish Government to give evidence to us on the consolidated accounts, because we would be keen to get a bit more detail from it about the area that you just mentioned, as well as about what its plans are.
I will move on to expenses associated with litigation. In previous years, the committee has taken an interest in the payments that have had to be made to former directors of Rangers Football Club: £60 million-worth of unplanned spend—as it is called—were paid out from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and the settlements left a large hole in the accounts.
This year, the payment that you have highlighted is considerably less than that—I think that it is £0.34 million, with provision for a further £7 million. Where are we in the trajectory of those cases and those settlements? Have they all been, or almost been, settled? Do you expect any further claims?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Richard Leonard
We have had a long and detailed session. There are areas that we would ask you to clarify for us, Auditor General, and it is pretty clear that there are some outstanding questions that we should direct not at you but at the Scottish Government, so we will have to consider how we can best do that.
Thank you very much, Auditor General, Helen Russell and Carole Grant, for your willingness to give us such comprehensive evidence this morning. It is greatly appreciated.
I close the public part of the session and move the committee into private session.
10:58 Meeting continued in private until 11:24.Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”
Meeting date: 7 November 2024
Richard Leonard
Item 3 is consideration of the 2023-24 audit of the Scottish Government’s consolidated accounts. I am pleased to welcome the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle. He is joined by Carole Grant, who is audit director, and Helen Russell, who is senior audit manager, at Audit Scotland.
Auditor General, we have quite a number of questions to put to you this morning. However, before we get to those, I invite you to make a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee
Tackling Digital Exclusion
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
Are you saying that you accept that finding or that you do not accept it?
Public Audit Committee
Tackling Digital Exclusion
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
So do you now have detailed actions? Have you designated who is responsible for them? Do you have timescales and monitoring arrangements?
Public Audit Committee
Tackling Digital Exclusion
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
Mr Huggins, you spoke earlier about “a major success story” but, on the subject of digital exclusion, I infer from what you said that you think that it is the ageing population that is digitally excluded and that, over time, that will diminish, as though you think that people are going to die off and the problem will go away. However, that is not what the report says, is it? It says that age is a factor—of course it is, and everybody understands that—but the introduction to the report says:
“Digital exclusion is strongly associated with poverty and people with certain protected characteristics.”
My question is for the director general. What is the Scottish Government’s position? Is it that you think that the problem will diminish over time because older people are going to die, or do you see that there is a real and present issue because of people’s impoverishment and protected characteristics, which will continue to exist and to be a challenge, and on which the Government needs to show some leadership?
Public Audit Committee
Tackling Digital Exclusion
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
Okay—thank you. I will bring in Colin Beattie next.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
Good morning and welcome to the 26th meeting in 2024 of the Public Audit Committee. Our first agenda item is to consider whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Tackling Digital Exclusion
Meeting date: 31 October 2024
Richard Leonard
Our main item is a further consideration of the joint report by the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission “Tackling digital exclusion”. I am pleased to welcome our witnesses: Lesley Fraser, director general corporate, Geoff Huggins, chief digital officer, and Eilidh McLaughlin, deputy director, digital ethics, inclusion and assurance—all at the Scottish Government; and Martyn Wallace, chief digital officer in the digital office for Scottish local government, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.
There are no opening statements, so I will start the questions. I direct my first question to Lesley Fraser. Do you accept the findings and the recommendations in the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission report “Tackling digital exclusion”?
