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 1690 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
What is your direct experience, Mr Campbell?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
That speaks to a cultural issue, does it not, John Sturrock?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
That leads back to the Government.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
On that note, and picking up a point that the convener has made, there are surely two bare minimums. By way of disclosure, I note that, in one of my multiple previous lives, I ran large-scale so-called transformational change programmes for corporates. As programme manager, I would collate the terms of reference and the structure. I would head the programme and multiple project managers would report to me, while a project management office would deal with the gubbins. We would have a change control process and a clear established budget. There is no way that a project with a budget of even £500,000 would not have a proper, clear governance structure to manage costs, but that is contrary to what we are talking about.
To flesh out the idea, I note that that is one route, but there will be others. We need to know to what extent lawyers understand that they are not equipped to do that sort of thing—in fairness, they need not be, as that is not their role. They bring expertise in the law and huge capacity for attention to detail. Is that generally recognised or is there a tension in that, if that tidiness is not already in place, it may suit some law firms because, ultimately, it will result in increased billable hours and, therefore, profit?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
I think that you maketh my point.
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
In either of those instances, did the communication include questions about the cost and the on-going governance?
Finance and Public Administration Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
I would dispute that, as a politician, but do carry on.
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
How do you know that that will happen as a result of the bill?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 11 June 2025
Michelle Thomson
Even if there is a good prevailing wind and the guidance sets out how best practice should be shared, that will not, of itself, mean that any more money will be available, will it? The bill will simply suggest that things could be made marginally better through the sharing of best practice.