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 3123 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I personally disagree, because we are still at a stage where we do not know where we are, but others might take a different view.
You are saying that, internally, people supported that view. Your interim finance director, who came across very well when she appeared before us, and who—this is rare in our considerations of the University of Dundee—impressed the committee, was telling you to appoint an external company, PwC, to assist you, the board and the university in coming up with a recovery plan. That was supported by your incoming interim finance director, whom you and the university welcomed. However, you took a different approach. Why were those two very senior people who are involved in the finances of the university wrong, and why were you right?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
However, as the principal and vice-chancellor, will you commit to discuss with the chair of the court the issue of its meetings being more transparent?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
Finally, Rachel Smart from The Inverness Courier has done a lot of work on the issue in the past few weeks and has given examples of children at that school—Lily, Cole, Drew and Dexter—who have been restrained and secluded. Some of that reporting is quite harrowing, even though it does not go into the full extent of what is going on. Will you be able to update us if any issues that arise from your meeting are directly linked to the bill? Any further update from your meeting with Drummond school would also be appreciated.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I am referring to the point that there are people who believe that the SFC is now a conduit for the Scottish Government and that it is not acting impartially with regard to the Scottish Government.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I am going through my questions in the order that I wrote them down. I know that you have taken legal advice that you cannot comment on Chris Reilly. Can you say, and continue to say, that he left the university by mutual agreement?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
But you are confident that the £40 million that you have asked for covers it, even though you are projecting significant deficits that exceed that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
Really? Plans have been produced by your predecessors and by you and the current board, but they have not been taken forward through the Scottish Funding Council, the Government or whoever takes those decisions. The committee has debated whether those plans have been rejected or not. Is it your view that the previous plans that were presented have been rejected?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I want to get to other members, because I have taken up too much time, but first I want to ask you a question, Mr Hamill. When you came into this job, what did you think about the very quick departure of your predecessor? Did that worry you?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
But you know how long a bill takes to go through as a non-Government bill, so the Government has an opportunity. When you were speaking to Mr Rennie it sounded like you agree with lots of things, but you might not do it in the same way. What discussion did you have? Was it simply about that timescale? Did the matter go to the Cabinet so that the Government could consider taking the bill on?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
Douglas Ross
I am still a wee bit unclear about that, but I realise that we are pressed for time.
The last thing that I want to focus on is an issue that Michael Marra touched on: your relationship with the Funding Council. How helpful has it been?
