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 1264 contributions
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
Although this is anecdotal, I add that my experience as a Scottish minister was always that there was a perception and an understanding that you were independent of Government. Your points around perception and understanding are interesting for our committee’s considerations.
Julie Paterson, do you want to come in on those points?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
I understand.
Is there anything that any of you wants to relay or to emphasise to us that you have not had the chance to talk about in this morning’s evidence? I see that no one has anything to add.
I thank you for your time and for the insights that you have shared with us today. We are grateful for them.
10:56 Meeting continued in private until 11:15.SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
That is interesting—you use and are part of the shared services programme, but you want to preserve the integrity of your independence. Those are the questions that we are interested in. Thank you.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2025 of the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee. I have received no apologies for today’s meeting. Ash Regan MSP joins us online.
The committee will take evidence from three public bodies that are funded by the Scottish Government but are seen to be independent. I am pleased and grateful to welcome to the committee: Julie Paterson, chief executive officer, Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland; John Ireland, chief executive, Scottish Fiscal Commission; and Craig Naylor, chief inspector, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.
We move directly to questions. The first question is from me, and is one that you are perhaps anticipating. As part of the review that Parliament has asked us to undertake, we are keen to understand as far as possible how supported bodies that are funded by the SPCB fit into the wider public body landscape. We have heard evidence that SPCB-supported bodies are often created when independence from Government is required for the body to fulfil its functions. As you are funded by the Scottish Government, I am interested in your thoughts on whether you consider that your organisations are able to act as independent bodies. I appreciate that the answer to that is likely to be yes, but I would be keen to understand why. Further, would you be able to function more efficiently, effectively or independently if you were an SPCB-supported body? In effect, I am asking: does who funds you matter?
I do not know who wants to go first—perhaps John Ireland?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
Unless colleagues have any more questions, I will ask a few last questions, the first of which is on shared services. Craig Naylor, you said that you are based in St Andrew’s house, so you use the Scottish Government estate. Julie Paterson and John Ireland, do you want to say where your physical offices are situated and whether that is in the Scottish Government estate?
Craig, do you pay the Government for using St Andrew’s house?
Can you all tell us more about how you share services, such as human resources and IT? SPCB-funded organisations have their own HR departments.
We are thinking about all of these issues, as you will appreciate.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
We will get to questions about function and similar points later in today’s evidence session. Thank you, both, for that helpful and insightful information. Craig Naylor, please come in on all the points that have been raised—and thanks for waiting patiently.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
Who would like to answer that first?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
John Ireland, a few moments ago, you wanted to come in but did not manage to. Do you want to come in now?
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
That was very helpful.
Murdo Fraser wants to ask a supplementary question.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Ben Macpherson
It is very helpful and interesting. The area of justice is quite interesting in itself, with regard to the wider question of SPCB-funded bodies and Scottish Government-funded bodies. For example, your organisation and the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner are funded by the Scottish Government because you are part of the accountability arrangements for the justice system, whereas the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is funded by the Parliament and holds other public services to account. Such are the questions that we have been wrestling with over the past months, and your insights are helpful to us as we continue to do that.
I have one further question, and then I will pass to Murdo Fraser. As you might be aware, the Scottish Government has nine classifications of public bodies, such as non-ministerial offices and health bodies. Do you feel that your body has been categorised appropriately and that your framework agreement sets out the right relationships with the Scottish Government and the Parliament? As far as you are aware, has your classification and, therefore, your relationship with the Government, ever been reviewed or reconsidered? If you do not have huge amounts to say on that, please feel free to be quite succinct, but it would be interesting to get your thoughts on those two points.