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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1784 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
I will come to that if you give me a minute. According to the SFC’s estimates of median incomes, which were published alongside the budget, more than half are set to pay less after deductions in 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. As I have said before, accounted-for deductions, such as pension contributions, are required to reflect the tax that is actually paid by taxpayers.
On your question about the level—
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
There is no evidence that there is a cliff edge for people who are on disability benefits. You need to remember that some of these people are already in work. We have not seen any evidence that there is a cliff edge that prevents people from getting into work because they are on benefits. The latest figures show that the number of people who successfully claim adult disability payment through Social Security Scotland is quite modest. We need to consider everything in the round before making judgments.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
No, but I am sure that I could get those figures for you.
I hope that you would accept that the need for mental health support has increased, particularly in the post-Covid era, not just in Scotland but in other jurisdictions. We need to support those people, and we also need to support people to avoid falling out of work. That is why it is important that people get the right support when they need it, including when they return to work. We need to support people back into work, which is why we are funding our employability programmes and providing £8 million for colleges to work with parents and help those who are furthest from the labour market to get back into work.
Nobody disagrees that work is the best way out of poverty, but I believe that Scotland has a compassionate and fair system for people who need support. Those who want to change that system need to set out how they would do that and who would lose support.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
First, on the point about the level of detail, we have provided level 4 detail for health and local government. Have we provided it at that level for social security?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
SPICe is also an expert organisation that provides support to parliamentarians, and, every year, it compares the local government settlement from budget to budget, because of in-year transfers. I am not disputing anything that anybody has said; all that I am saying is that there are good reasons why we do not compare local government funding to the ABR, which I have tried to set out as clearly as I can.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
I will bring in colleagues, but at no point in our discussions with the Scottish Fiscal Commission has concern been raised with us that the information is hazy or not transparent. Any information that the Fiscal Commission provides is helpful. If it is able to provide additional clarity, that is not a bad thing.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
We have a process with the Scottish Fiscal Commission.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
I am keen to hear what the SFC has to say about pay. I have seen its comments and reflections.
There will be a number of factors, including what the potential transformation and reform will mean for the delivery of workforce reductions. There is a clear relationship between head count and pay, and what organisations can deliver via efficiency savings will be important and will play into future pay rounds.
Inflation will also be important. If it comes down to 2 per cent, as desired, that will be a factor in pay negotiations for 2027-28. Given the pressures on the budget for that year, we will need pay constraint. It will be a very tight year indeed, and we must set reasonable expectations. I believe that pay increases have been fairly generous so far, but they have also allowed us to avoid costly strike action. We must look at these things in the round.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
I would say that the two-year deals mean that we are in a good place on pay. The alternative would be industrial disruption in many sectors, which we have managed to avoid by having two-year deals. Those are affordable and would not have been agreed if they were not so.
The robust work that has been led by Ivan McKee will have to deliver workforce reductions. We have set out what those reductions will be in every area. Cabinet secretaries and organisations, including health boards and other front-line services, will be required to deliver those reductions and will be tracked as they do so. We are not working on a wing and a prayer: there will be tracking, requirements, accountability and transparency in the delivery of all of that.
The final piece of the pay policy will be to revisit it in 2027-28 to see what is possible in the light of budgetary constraints, where inflation is and what the efficiencies have delivered by then. Head count and pay are absolutely interlinked.
That is not perfect, but you know as much as I do about the cost of industrial action—not just the cost in pounds and pence but the cost through the disruption to and impact on public services—and we have managed to avoid that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 27 January 2026
Shona Robison
I do not accept that characterisation. Work has been done at a very detailed level to deliver reasonable workforce reductions, which now have to be delivered. Essentially, they are baked into the assumptions that are being made about funding. Workforce reduction has to be delivered; it is not a nice-to-do.