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 3306 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
There is a bit of interaction there.
The phrase “training needs analysis” has been raised, although I have forgotten the name of the witness who raised it. Perhaps that is what happens at the moment, but would you be sympathetic to the idea that every member of staff should themselves examine what training they need, given the situation that they are in?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
Fair enough. That is helpful.
This might be a question for Professor Seaton. Some of my colleagues have asked whether there is enough consultation, but there is an incredibly lengthy process under way compared with what you would find in the private sector, and a huge amount of consultation and negotiation is taking place. In the private sector, someone would come in, make decisions and make people redundant. In asking this question I am not suggesting that I support that approach, but why are universities so slow? Mr Hamill, you were at Edinburgh university previously. It seemed to jump more quickly towards redundancies, saving itself from getting into a big problem. Does everything take such a long time because you are so dependent on the SFC?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
It strikes me that it is probably a good thing to have different approaches, certainly for individual teachers, as there is a whole range of schools out there.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
The issue of training has already been touched on by others. As Mr Greer has pointed out—it is a point that I was going to raise—it was brought to the committee’s attention that, as you have suggested already, teachers are perhaps fearful of restraining kids in any way at the moment. More training—and, indeed, more standardised training—might, in a sense, reassure teachers that they can use restraint, which might, in turn, lead to an increase in its use. Would that concern you?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
Could any teacher not be in a situation where there needs to be physical intervention—for example, if a secondary 6 pupil is bashing an S1 who has special needs?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
That is helpful; thank you. What about management accounts? I take it that they are being produced monthly. Who gets to see those? Can we see them?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
University of Dundee
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
I do not know what the convener thinks, but I would quite like to see anything that we can have. That would be great. I would like to see quite a lot, including any draft accounts for 2024 or 2025—I am more interested in the accounts than some of my colleagues are.
You mentioned the audit and risk committee and the finance and policy committee. Do they meet more often nowadays because you have had financial problems?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
Yes, exactly. Some people will get trained up to a high level and then they will train within the local authority. Does that fit with this model?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
In a sense, my concern is the opposite of the convener’s, because I wonder whether the SFC is doing what the Government wants. It seems that the university is drifting somewhat. There is no permanent principal in place. Is the SFC not guilty of being a bit hands-off?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 October 2025
John Mason
Is the SFC moving fast enough?
