The production of Reports

The Reports Office produces three kinds of documents: verbatim report, summary report and end-of-sitting communiqué.
The verbatim report contains, word by word, all that happens (dicta et acta) in the relevant sitting, subjected to only formal corrections.
The summary report gives a very concise account of what happens in the relevant sitting, which the verbatim report does fully.
The end-of-sitting communiqué even more concisely reports Plenary proceedings.
Since 15th September 1998, the Senate has been issuing a single publication containing both verbatim and summary reports, which are directly drawn up in their final form.

This publication also includes Annexes A and B, which, respectively, contain the texts under scrutiny and the policy-orientation and policy-monitoring documents submitted.
Since 2001, the page "I lavori del Senato" ('Senate business') on the Senate website has given access to the plenary sitting verbatim and summary reports produced during the sitting itself, as well as the collection of previous sitting reports. The on-linepublication of the current report while the sitting is under way, though just a draft requiring subsequent correction, has been a real challenge for our Office, as rapidity in publishing must not be to the detriment of accuracy of contents.

The stages of verbatim report production

The production of the plenary sitting verbatim report is divided into the following stages: stenotyping, transcription, revision, publication of the non-corrected draft report while the sitting is still under way, final publication.
At the stenotyping stage, stenotypists sit in the Plenary Hall and type all words spoken and facts happened (dicta and acta) during the sitting. In this activity 12 stenotypists, in turn, sit to type for 5 minutes.
Then the individual stenotypists involved in the sitting transcript the text, that is they draw up their part of the report. The report passages produced are subsequently collated and checked, then published on the Internet, as non-corrected draft verbatim report. A further check follows, after which the report becomes final and is published as such.

The transcription stage is a series of operations on the verbatim text resulting from the stenotyping notes - which allow for passing from the oral to the written form thereby producing the report - with the introduction of all further integral elements (basically what we call countenance - that is the description of facts happened during the sitting other than speeches: applauses, comments out of the microphone, laughs, gestures, etc -, procedure formulas, HTML links for its subsequent publication on the website).

Each speaker, before on-linepublication and not over 2 hours after the conclusion of his/her speech, may read the corresponding text and effect exclusively formal corrections.
The revision stage is the collation, check and co-ordination of the texts produced by the stenotypists who worked in the Plenary Hall.
After tag verification and indexation, the report is ready for on-linepublication, as a non-corrected draft verbatim report produced while the sitting is under way.
Before final publication, other operations are made: a general check and the co-ordination of the contents of the verbatim report with those of the annex and summary report. The resulting texts are published on-line, stored in a general text database and electronically sent to typography for their printing on paper.