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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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Of course.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Please go ahead.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Okay, thanks. As I mentioned, the deputy convener has a final question. It might invite a yes or no answer.
Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2025 of the Public Audit Committee. We have apologies this morning from committee member Stuart McMillan.
Under agenda item 1, does the committee agree to take agenda items 4, 5, 6 and 7 in private this morning?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Agenda item 2 is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s report, “Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”. I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning. We are joined by the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle. Alongside the Auditor General are Carole Grant, an audit director, and Richard Robinson, a senior manager, both from Audit Scotland. I am also very pleased to welcome once again to the Public Audit Committee Gareth Davies, who is the Comptroller and Auditor General at the National Audit Office. Alongside Mr Davies is Darren Stewart, who is His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs financial audit director at the National Audit Office.
I think that you are aware that we are quite tight for time this morning. We have some important areas of ground that we want to cover with you, so if you are able to make your answers concise, that would be helpful—and I have leant on the committee to encourage concise questions. Before we get to those questions, I invite both Stephen Boyle and Gareth Davies to make opening statements. I will begin with you, Auditor General.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. I will turn to a couple of issues that both of you raised in your opening statements. In particular, Auditor General, you referred to something that is in your report. Exhibit 3 shows that £3.367 billion of additional income tax revenue has been raised from the Scottish population, but that that converts to additional budget spend of only £629 million. Presumably, that is a product of the fiscal framework. Do you have any observations about how the fiscal framework is working? What are the implications of that? As I calculate it, for every £5 raised, only £1 is available for the budget.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
I said at the start we are quite pressed for time, but can I ask you to confirm my calculation? The figure in exhibit 3 is a cumulative figure—I draw attention to it because it is one of your key messages. For every £5 that has been raised through additional income tax in Scotland, only £1 of that—or less than £1 of that; it is about 18 per cent—finds its way into the Scottish budget.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2023/24”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
Okay. Let me move on to another area that your report draws attention to and which you mentioned in your opening statement. The reconciliation figure for 2025-26 is £449 million—nearly half a billion pounds—which is the largest reconciliation to date. Is there a likelihood that that level of reconciliation will continue in the future? How does that affect the Scottish Government’s budget setting?
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
I have a couple of questions on a similar area to those that were raised by the deputy convener. One is about Mr Sutherland’s written submission, in which he goes further than what has been said so far. He says that he suggested that he should retire in October 2024, but that it was suggested to him by the Scottish Government deputy director that he might want to leave before then, so that he did not have to appear in front of the Public Audit Committee.
Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2023/24 audit of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland”
Meeting date: 19 February 2025
Richard Leonard
We may return to explore that a little bit further. Another thing—I have raised this before, so you might be prepared for it—is that it strikes me as quite odd that Mr Sutherland’s contract provided for him to receive 12 months’ notice on dismissal and only 6 months’ notice on resignation. Is that normal in the Scottish public sector, in your experience?
