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 2264 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
What they are is, of course, important, but so, too, is the mechanism for holding the university to account in relation to those conditions. Therefore, I am just curious how conditional they are.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Do you not think that, in order to make the changes to the academic structure that you have just described, you need to speak to the academics and some of the staff? In doing that through the trade unions, you might have perhaps gathered some perspectives that you had not thought about.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I appreciate that. You will know that committee members are aware of and share concerns about the funding model and are concerned that universities are facing serious financial concerns. I acknowledge that and I recognise that that is part of it.
In response to my question, you said that other universities are managing to deliver services efficiently and that things are okay with fewer staff. For some of the restructuring, including the realignment of professional services, what equality impact assessment did you do in order to determine the broader context and impact of some of the decisions?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I appreciate that, however, there is little that is more concrete than people losing their jobs. Obviously, it is important that people understand whether there is an equalities angle. When consultations take place, including with the trade unions about some decisions, that kind of information seems pretty concrete and material to their decision making, is it not?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Can you tell us anything just now about the sorts of conditions that will be attached to the funding? In response to my colleague Willie Rennie, the cabinet secretary made the point that, if money is flowing out from the Government to the institution, one might expect conditions to be attached to it. Can you indicate what any of those conditions might be?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
I have heard this morning that the Government is quite keen to gather data and that it recognises that there are some data gaps, which is an important point. I hope that the bill provides an opportunity to address some of that.
Where restraint is used in care settings, incidents are reported externally and can trigger support and challenge, which speaks to the accountability piece that I have just spoken about. In education, that level of live external scrutiny does not necessarily exist. Does the Government believe that schools should move closer to the care model, where incidents are not just logged locally but are actively monitored or challenged?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Thank you.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Forgive me, but, in that case, how conditional are the conditions?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
It has also been put to us that, when that decision was discussed at the senate, the conclusion from every school ranged from—I am quoting what has been shared—“sceptical” to “hostile” to the idea.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Pam Duncan-Glancy
Government officials put it to us that the role of the recovery plan was not just to make the numbers add up. They also specifically said that the plan should have buy-in from the university community, including staff and students. Given the concerns that I have raised with you and the concerns that we have had raised with us by students, staff, trade unions and others, do you think that you have that buy-in?
