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 1122 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
Are you satisfied with that, Mr Boyle?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
I accept what the minister has said about the amendments being strictly necessary—I think that those were the words that she used. However, sufficiently senior people in the education world have concerns that the issue is not getting sufficient focus from the inspectorate just now. Although it is possible to evaluate safeguarding, that is not necessarily happening consistently enough to satisfy those individuals.
Perhaps we do not have to put it into the bill, but I hope that the cabinet secretary takes away the fact that there needs to be a discussion with the inspectorate about the role that it plays in safeguarding and the resource and priority that it gives to safeguarding in inspections. After all, the people who have raised those concerns are not insignificant. They are concerned that local authority systems—not at the child protection level but at the level below—are not sufficiently robust. I hope that the cabinet secretary takes away the fact that there are concerns out there and that priorities need to change.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
That is a very fair point, and we should consider it in the discussions that I hope that the cabinet secretary will be prepared to have.
I move amendment 308.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
On this occasion, I think that this is about people, because we are talking about short-term measures. We are considering the current board. I would not want there to be any period of uncertainty here. I think that Shirley Rogers is impressive—indeed, she was impressive when she came before the committee—and I would not like her to think that her job might come to an end. I want her to crack on and make the changes that we want to see. If I had been asked the question a year ago, I might have agreed with you, but not now.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
Again, you are taking this on. They are going to be your costs.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
You have heard Mr Yeates say several times that the transition cost is £30 million, which is much more than what the Government is saying the cost is. Why have you not challenged that figure? Do you agree with the £30 million?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
I admire your certainty but, as you might imagine, we have doubts. We have differing reports from various people whom we respect because we have dealt with them in other spheres, and they all say broadly similar things. However, you are certain that you are fine.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
What I hear from some employers and other people is that you are quite a difficult organisation to deal with.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
You do not accept any of the quotations that I have read out.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 May 2025
Willie Rennie
Why do you not publish that?