The Norwegian Parliament is considering to start using speech-to-text technology. At first we are considering whether speech-to-text technology can be relevant in writing the minutes from parliamentary sittings. The intention of this enquiry is to examine what the market is like for this type of technology. In addition, the Norwegian Parliament would like to obtain information that we can use later in a possible tender contest notice.
There are approx. 105 parliamentary sittings per annum. Verbatim — word-for-word — minutes are written from these sittings. In total, the sittings annually have approx. 500 hours of speech and the completed minutes make up just under 5000 printed pages per annum. The work is done in the minutes section. The work process has three parts and currently consists of printing out, quality assurance and publication of the minutes from the parliamentary sittings. The printing out is based on audio files with recordings from the parliamentary sittings. The work process is further described in Annex 1.