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 1443 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
A number of institutions are facing challenges currently, but I want to be clear that this year’s budget settlement will help to protect those institutions. I need to be quite careful on this point, because, as you will understand, ministers do not distribute the funding. The Scottish Funding Council has a key role in that regard, as is right and proper, but, to my mind, the funding that we have provided in the budget will help to create the stability that the sector needs to address the challenges that you have rightly raised. I accept that a number of institutions are in a challenging position currently, and there are others that are in a less challenging position.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
Yes. I have discussed that issue, because I recognise the challenge and I share some of the member’s views on it. I will bring in Shirley Laing in a moment in relation to that. My understanding is that some of the reduction is because the DLC was coming to completion, so you would naturally expect that spend to reduce as a result. I will bring in Shirley Laing on the specifics of the reporting and the way in which that was made clear—or not, as the case may be. We can perhaps reflect on that and on how we can communicate the budget, because it is important for the sector to have certainty on the funding, and I do not want to create any dubiety on that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
No.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
No, and I cannot recall ever being asked, as cabinet secretary, for views on how the budget lines would be presented. In general, that is not how things are communicated with cabinet secretaries.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
Mr Macpherson will come in on that. I broadly accept your point about RAAC, which is an issue not only for the college estate but for the whole education estate. There are issues with RAAC in some of our schools, for example. We need to have a coherent cross-Government approach. Ms Somerville led the work on understanding where RAAC existed, and as I think that the committee will recall, I appeared before the committee back in 2023 to talk about some of those issues in a bit more detail.
The college estate does not belong to ministers, but it is fair to say that we have an interest in it, so we have been working with the sector on how we can provide additionality and enhanced funding. There are specific challenges. Mr Briggs gave the example of Dundee and Angus College, but there are other institutions in a similar position. Mr Macpherson wants to say more about the infrastructure investment plan for colleges and how that will help to support that work.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
It is across the board. We need to be careful about that. Some public bodies have grown exponentially—and your party regularly chastises ministers such as me on the growth of the public sector. We need to look at that.
That does not apply just to public bodies. The Scottish Government civil service has grown over time, since the pandemic. We all have a role to play in that regard, and our public bodies will be key to delivering on some of the efficiency savings.
It will not be across the piece, however. It will be easier to create savings in some public bodies than in others, thinking about the critical work done by public bodies—not least the children’s hearings system, for example. They are so essential that we would need to be very careful in looking at reductions in certain areas.
We will have to play our part in education, no doubt, but, to refer to the point that Clare Hicks was making, we will protect front-line services. That applies particularly to teaching roles.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
I cannot recall, convener. Do you know, Shirley?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
I think that I referenced the role of the education system in tackling poverty in my opening statement. I am fairly sure that I did.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
Yes.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 21 January 2026
Jenny Gilruth
I think that it is complementary to the challenges that colleges face. I do not see the issues as being in competition. However, on your substantive point, Mr Rennie, this is about us changing fundamentally and thinking about how we fund the college sector. It is also about recognising that it is not just about buildings, which is the point that Mr Briggs pursued—I am sure that other members will be looking at other areas. It is fundamentally about the communities that the colleges support and whether we can leverage into our colleges sector additionality to reduce poverty. We know that colleges play an integral role and help to support our communities. I do not therefore see the issues as being in competition.
