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 2352 contributions
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
They are told that it is two days a week, but it ends up being more.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
I will sort of follow on from that. Earlier, I gave an example from the area that the convener and I represent: the former chair of NHS Lanarkshire has moved and is now the chair of NHS Forth Valley. I put it to the commissioner that that might be inappropriate, and he seemed to think that it was not the best situation.
What do you make of that? Is that an example of how we are struggling to fill positions? Would it not be better if we could have got somebody different? That is not to cast aspersions on the chair, who is a fine woman—
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
Richard Leonard and I have worked with her over many years. However, it just does not seem right.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
That is a good point to make. We have no complaints about her at all. You have put on the record that there was a gap, so that is good.
On remuneration, I was not clear whether you said that you have moved one board or all boards into tier 1.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
Does that mean that board chairs, for example, are now being paid more than they were being paid?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
The figure that we were given earlier was about £30,000 for two days’ work a week. Does that sound right to you?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
So is it going to happen?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
Right at the start, you mentioned five core principles, one of which was digital, which gives me the opportunity, as you were expecting, to ask how we are getting on with the app that you keep promising us.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
Soon?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Graham Simpson
Visiting health board premises is not quite the same as visiting a hospital. I was hoping that you would say, “Yes, I have.”