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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 2298 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
You said that you had those discussions with him. Did those discussions include a pay-off and an offer for her to go on trips around the world funded by the university?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
I understand that. I am sure that things were respectful between you and her. However, I just want to know the details of those discussions. Were offers made for her to go on trips and to receive a substantial pay-off?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
I cannot believe that you can say that with a straight face. It is very clear. Why, when Professor Gillespie, as the principal and vice-chancellor, instructed you to remove someone from the university would you offer that person the opportunity to go and work for the university abroad? It was clearly an enticement to leave. You have just told us that there was conflict between the two of them. With that conflict, how could you possibly believe that the arrangement was to benefit the university if the principal did not believe what that individual was advocating? Those trips were to get someone to leave鈥攃an you not accept that?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
The bigger issue was not responding to that and continuing to spend. Dr McGeorge, as chief operating officer, why did you not you see student numbers going down but staff numbers and other costs going up? Spotting that is a chief operating officer鈥檚 role.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
Do you accept that that is how it could be and, I think, would be perceived?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
It would have been valuable if she had been continuing, but it was part of an exit package, which is different.
Do you accept that there is a perception among some people that the discussions that you had without prejudice were enticements rather than how you describe them? Would it be criminal to use the university鈥檚 money to buy someone off in that way?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
That is funny, because people tell us that the people person did not respond; they do not caveat that by saying that you did not respond by email but came and spoke to them. It is clear in the evidence that we got that you were ignoring serious concerns.
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
We have spoken about the covenant a bit and I want to delve into it. However, before we get there, there is something that I want to get on the record from the three of you. Did you all fully engage with the Gillies report, and did Pamela Gillies and her team interview you all?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
I will challenge that in a moment.
If we say that you were made aware in November鈥擥illies suggests otherwise鈥攄id you, at that point, look at the scenario of a breach and what a university and a company secretary should do?
Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 25 June 2025
Douglas Ross
It would not take much looking up. I am not suggesting that Mr Fotheringham will argue this, but there might be an argument from others that, although this is a financial issue, given that it is a breach, which has implications, that is a company secretary鈥檚 job.