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 3519 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Scotland’s colleges 2025”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much. I will move straight along and invite Graham Simpson to put some questions to you.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Scotland’s colleges 2025”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
I am sorry that I am jumping about a bit, but I will take you to paragraph 35, which speaks about the importance of the relationship between a college and the community in which it sits. I cannot help thinking of anywhere except Alloa. Clackmannan College, which was established there in the 1960s, became part of a merged group with a campus in Stirling and the long-standing Falkirk campus. As you alluded to this morning, the Alloa campus is now under threat. In paragraph 35, you describe why the community relationship is so important. Do you want to elaborate on that a bit before I get to another question?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
We are short of time, so, instead of going back around the table, I will move things on.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Scotland’s colleges 2025”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
Thank you. In appendix 3 of the report, you set out a table of what is happening to full-time equivalent posts by college. The biggest percentage cut in full-time equivalent staff is at the City of Glasgow College. Incidentally, the second biggest cut—we will come on to it—is at Forth Valley College.
Do you have any understanding of why, at the same time as a college is sitting on significant cash reserves, it is also reducing its teaching and non-teaching staff by such a huge number—160-odd people walking out the door within 12 months?
12:15Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
When you publish the Government’s response to the report, do you expect there to be some kind of evaluation of the recommendations, the costs associated with them and so on?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
Last week, Edel Harris said her understanding of “value for money” was that it was to be achieved
“not just through running a very efficient system, but also through the value that something brings to society”.—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 5 November; c 39.]
Is that your perspective as well?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
Fine. That is helpful. As Edel Harris pointed out to us last week, there is quite a high level of interdependency between the two systems in terms of passporting to benefits, the fiscal framework and how that works, and the Barnett formula. Earlier, Kevin Stevens was able to give us chapter and verse on why the figure may be less because the planned reductions in PIP eligibility were paused. I think that he said they were reversed, but they were paused or halted, anyway. These things are quite important in allowing us to understand that there is at least an attempt at ministerial and possibly at official level to have some influence on that review.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
I have two very quick final questions. My first one is for Mr Wallace, and it relates to the answer that you have just given. It is a hallmark of Social Security Scotland that the private sector is not involved in the assessment process, which distinguishes it from the path that the DWP has gone down. Is the private sector involved at all in the surveillance strategy that you just spoke of?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
The report talks in very positive terms about “good early progress” and about the transfer from PIP to adult disability payment being on track. Generally, it is quite positive, but it also says—other members of the committee will ask questions about this—that there is not yet a “detailed strategy” for how the Government will manage the overall budget, given that there is a growing gap between the DWP’s bill and Social Security Scotland’s bill. The report also says that performance information is “limited”. Do you accept those criticisms as well as the praise?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“Adult Disability Payment”
Meeting date: 12 November 2025
Richard Leonard
We were told that it is expected that the Government will provide a formal response by February, six months on from the report’s publication date. Is it your expectation that that is when we will get the Government’s response, or will we possibly get it before then?
