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 1162 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Do you think that it is important that they have such a relationship? There are bodies across the UK that will have an impact on what might happen in any part of the UK. Therefore, if different legislation governs the public inquiries in different jurisdictions, surely it is important that there is co-ordination with the UK body.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Last week, one witness suggested doing exactly that, as she felt that someone who was starting out on a public inquiry would gain from the considerable experience that exists as a result of other public inquiries that have taken place. I understand that that work could be done by the Cabinet Office. Is that correct?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Thank you. That is very helpful. Mary Morgan, what is the reason for the growth in the number of public inquiries?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Would you agree with one of our previous witnesses who suggested that perhaps one of the reasons for the growth in public inquiries is the perception that Government agencies have been failing to address specific questions, leading to frustration among victims or people who are demanding a public inquiry that their questions are not being answered in channels in which they should have been answered? I think that we can all name public inquiries that are examples of that. Is that a serious problem?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Before I ask my questions, it is important that I put on record that I am heavily involved with the Eljamel inquiry in Scotland.
Ms McKee, you gave a very interesting answer to the convener. You said that you feel that, when it comes to some public inquiries, the terms of reference are not always absolutely accurate, because they have to be dealt with very quickly. Can you give us some examples of where you feel that the terms of reference have maybe not been as accurate as they might have been?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
That would be helpful, because one of the issues—it is a genuine issue—in the Eljamel inquiry relates to constitutional differences. What would happen under the legislation in Scotland is different from what would happen under the Inquiries Act 2005, meaning that the terms of reference of a Scottish public inquiry would not necessarily tie up with the terms of reference of a UK inquiry. However, if evidence emerges that UK bodies were involved in some aspects of the Scottish situation and, therefore, by definition, should be investigated, ensuring that the UK and the Scottish inquiries are aligned will become a very important matter. I think that that has happened with the Covid inquiry, and it has certainly happened with the infected blood scandal inquiry. Do you have a view as to how a Scotland body would be able to have a really good, strong working relationship with the UK body in respect of the terms of reference?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
I am asking that question because it is very important to establish exactly why there has been a growth in the number of public inquiries, because that has a cost implication. However, if it is the case—I am not saying that it is—that one reason for their increase is that complaints have not been dealt with in the forum in which they should have been, we need to take that very seriously. If were are talking about an issue that should have been dealt with by a health board or whoever, it might not have gone to a public inquiry.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Okay. Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Would a circumstance in which you could foresee a possible change to the terms of reference, such as their expansion, be information coming to light from a different part of the jurisdiction that was being investigated?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Liz Smith
Is the better process that you have mentioned simply about transparency, or does something else have to happen?