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 751 contributions
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Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
I did not really expect that, but there you go.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
In what you have talked about, you have referred a couple of times already to accountability. If the public watch First Minister’s question time every week—I am sure that you will have to do that as well, whether you want to or not—all that they will see is questions being put to the First Minister, quite legitimately, about issues in the health service. Where do you think they see the accountability of 22 different health boards? Do they see that at all, or do they see it as the Government being responsible?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
It is just that, in my experience, if somebody has an issue with a health board or with health services in their area, the last people they go to will be the health board. They might access the complaint system, or they might go to councillors or MSPs, but the health board does not feature. Unless it is something like the closure of a hospital, the health board does not feature at all. That is my point. Is the health board a needless layer? I suppose that it is difficult for you to comment on this, because it is down to Government policy, but does the current configuration of 22 health boards, a number of which the public do not even know exist, add to accountability in any way?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
I am conscious of what you were saying earlier about the development of scrutiny of public appointments. Back in 2007, when I was first elected to the Parliament, a separate committee of the Parliament dealt with public appointments, and I think that I became the first convener of the then Standards and Public Appointments Committee, which joined the two functions together. Since then—I spent a decade of the intervening time making ministerial appointments—the role with regard to public appointments has hugely expanded, as has the role with regard to audit. It is a bit of a chimera that that is all down to ministers. Ministers’ freedom of choice is fundamentally limited, not least because of the code of conduct and the various things that you ask them to do and ensure are done. However, that is also due to the nature of civil servants who, perhaps naturally, will tend to focus on like-minded people. They are the ones who will draw up the shortlist by and large, although I concede the point that they will ask ministers for suggestions.
Given all the rules around appointments, to what extent is the environment in which ministers are being asked to operate in order to make appointments now counterproductive? As Jamie Greene mentioned, the freedom to take account of diversity is much more constrained now, because the candidate has to fit the model. Furthermore, we are operating in an environment in which the failure rate to appoint in the first round is 25 per cent.
Consideration of diversity in public appointments must include the ability to look from outside, to be objective about it and to think afresh. To what extent have you looked afresh at the impact of what you do in the appointments process?
10:45Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
The point that I am making is that civil servants are absolutely assiduous at making sure that they comply with the code and that that might be an issue in itself. I was not making the point that feedback from ministers might inform some further thinking. How have you sought to ensure that you have looked at the issue as much as you can from outside? If the environment is such that there is a 25 per cent failure rate—there are other challenges—we are not getting this right.
I should say that the view of ministers, certainly when I was in post, was that your office is co-operative and is pragmatic in applying the rules. However, is the environment such that the freedom to get less conventional candidates even on to a shortlist is being nullified?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
If we are agreed on the fact that there is more than enough talent to fulfil all the roles, something is happening, given the failure rate and the inability to appoint to the positions as and when required. That would suggest that something in the system is not allowing us to tap into that talent.
On your point about our needing to step back and look more widely, have you drawn any comparisons with what happens in Wales, Northern Ireland or England in relation to those issues?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
Thanks very much.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
How would you justify the blurring as opposed to the elimination of boundaries? Why is blurring the right way to go?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
“NHS in Scotland: Spotlight on governance”
Meeting date: 24 September 2025
Keith Brown
Would you say that it is systematic?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]
Pre-Budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 18 September 2025
Keith Brown
I notice that a comparison is not made between Scotland and Wales or Northern Ireland, so is the comparison with England as supplemented by UK expenditure on acquisitions?
