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 2792 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Colin Beattie
Have you formed any view on whether the different approach by the Scottish Government represents value for money, given the potential impact on public services?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 1 October 2025
Colin Beattie
But surely that variable could be applied to almost any part of the Scottish budget, and not just the part that we are discussing. We have no control over the changes that happen at Westminster and the impact on our budget. We cannot make contingencies for every single possible potential change.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
You want to tap into different pools of talent, but, over a number of years, the committee has had difficulty with the quality of the governance of boards. People with the skills and the willingness to do the job, frankly, are few and far between. How do we ensure that quality is maintained while still getting people from those diverse pools to step forward for the job? How do we maintain the quality? I say “maintain the quality”, but I mean, how do we get the quality up?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
The Auditor General has commented on particular issues in rural areas. How do you see those being tackled?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
I was going to ask you what boards have done that is different and has enabled them to get a better result.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
You mentioned reappointments and extensions. The code of practice requires that there is proper appraisal of a board member’s performance and evidence that they continue to meet the board’s needs. Are you satisfied that that process is robust enough?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
Is there adequate analysis in the appraisals? You have presumably seen quite a few of them go past your desk. Is there enough analysis about a board’s future needs and the ability of the person being considered for extension or reappointment to contribute to those needs?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
If they attend board meetings only intermittently, how do they keep up to date with what is happening? What is the line of communication?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
Where I am coming from is that, in a number of cases across the public sector, there has been governance failure that seems to be linked consistently to sponsorship not being as effective as it should be and to a lack of engagement. I realise that lots of different parties are involved and that the NHS is a complex beast, However, if the sponsorship team only engages or focuses on where there is an issue, how does it act as a tripwire to pick up problems, give guidance and advice, and have the input that would help to get past that so that it does not appear as an exception to the Auditor General?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Colin Beattie
I would like to circle back to diversity. Paragraph 60 of the Auditor General’s report says:
“Issues of diversity remain in some boards, both in terms of protected characteristics and in bringing in the perspective of people who use services.”
How can that situation be improved? There is a great difficulty in getting non-executive directors at the best of times. I have had the experience of jobs being re-advertised and so on when trying to increase that pool. Getting diverse representation is quite complex, because diversity is very diverse. How do you reach out to the different groupings that you would like to see represented on the boards?
