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 3298 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Do you therefore accept the criticism that has been levelled at you that you have not effectively planned for that change?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Okay. I will move things on by inviting Graham Simpson to ask you some questions.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
I am not sure whether you grasp what I took to be a fairly fundamental criticism of the funding arrangements. In part, that perhaps reflects Mr McMillan’s point that the briefing is clear that there is a direct correlation between areas with high levels of deprivation and the requirement for additional support for learning in those areas.
Are you satisfied that the current funding arrangements meet the challenge that is created by deprivation, inequality or, for example, the issue of English not being a person’s first language, which you have mentioned a couple of times this morning? Do you think that the funding arrangements properly address that?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Just for completeness, Laura Caven, you are a co-chair of the project board. Who is the other co-chair?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
You said earlier that this is not just about data; it is about the operation of the system. I will finish on a point that is often one of my refrains. Children are only five once, eight once, 11 once and 15 once, so there is no point in coming back in four years’ time and saying that you have solved it, because, for that cohort of young people, it might be too late. There needs to be a sense of urgency about addressing some of the challenges that are set out in the briefing that we have been considering this morning.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Okay. I now invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to you.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Would I be right to infer from that that you think that some of the Accounts Commission and Auditor General timescales might not be realistic?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
You are describing an international phenomenon, but the briefing is about the Scottish Government and its responsibilities. Key message 4 says:
“the Scottish Government has not planned effectively for the potential impact of this ... approach to ASL.”
How do you respond to that?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Our principal agenda item this morning is further consideration of the briefing, “Additional support for learning”, which was prepared jointly by the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission. I am pleased to welcome representatives of the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.
From the Scottish Government, I welcome Neil Rennick, who is the director general of education and justice; Stella Smith, who is the unit head for additional support for learning; and Clair Henderson, who is the team leader for additional support for learning. Alongside them, from COSLA, are Laura Caven, who is the chief officer for children and young people and the co-chair of the additional support for learning project board, which we might have some questions about over the course of this morning; Suzanne McLeod, who is a policy manager in the employers team; and Joanna Anderson, who is a policy manager for the local government and finance team.
We would like to put a number of questions to your teams this morning but, before we do so, I invite the director general to make a short opening statement.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Additional Support for Learning
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Richard Leonard
Before we move on, I go back to a fundamental point that the Auditor General made when he gave evidence before the committee on 19 March. He said that there had been
“an almost eightfold increase in the number of children and young people who need additional support for learning.”
He added:
“However, that is not reflected in how councils are funded for their education service.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 19 March 2025; c 7-8.]
Do you accept that criticism, director general?
