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 785 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
I just had a wee look at what the process is in England. Apparently, the three-year cycle is a policy aspiration. If a school is rated outstanding, it is inspected every four to five years, a good school gets done every four years and there is full reinspection within 30 months if a school requires improvement. That is a good idea.
However, the whole point is that it does not actually happen every three years. It would probably work out similarly to the system that we have, in which we ensure that, when there is an issue, there is a process—we do the inspection and the school gets the support that is needed. That is almost exactly the same, because outstanding schools and good schools will be the ones that are—
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
So the proposal is not the same.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
There is more flexibility for the employers to get what they want—is that what you are saying?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
But that is what we are hearing from you today—a very strong argument for things remaining the same.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
Given the figures brought up by my colleague John Mason—the fact that there could be 800 inspections a year—you run the risk of creating an administrative burden, with schools constantly under inspection and nothing getting done.
The evidence that we received from Professor Ken Muir from UWS—you have mentioned him on numerous occasions—was that the current inspection frameworks already provide sufficient flexibility to target resources where they are most needed while maintaining oversight of the system. He is someone who works in education and did a whole report on this and understands how everything works. Perhaps he would think that 800 inspections a year would be a bit much.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
George Adam
Will you take an intervention?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
George Adam
The more that I have listened to you talk—we have been doing this for nearly 12 hours now—the more that I have been thinking about whether we are trying to reinvent the wheel. Education Scotland does a lot of this work anyway. Are we not tinkering around the edges to create another body that would do what Education Scotland is already doing?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
George Adam
Should something go wrong and the inspector report something, you are accountable to the Parliament. Every one of my colleagues can demand in the chamber that you do something about it. My concern is that, at that point, you could answer any question by saying, “Well, it’s not really my job any more”—basically, telling us to talk to the chief inspector. Is there not a case that you would water down accountability if you supported the amendments from Willie Rennie and Sue Webber?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
George Adam
Ken Muir said that the current processes and systems were robust enough for them to continue in that way. He also said that it would cause further confusion as to what was what and what stood within which organisation.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
George Adam
I am just going on the evidence that Professor Muir gave at stage 1. He discussed the benefits of the current framework’s adaptability and suggested that mandatory alignment might create unnecessary rigidity in the qualifications system.
