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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 1837 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
That was not a criticism—it was just a question.
Last but not least, there has been a lot of discussion—rightfully so—in the media about the level of pay and bonuses in public bodies. I am sure that you have been following the debates that the Parliament and this committee have had on that very issue in recent weeks.
In 2023-24, £865,000 was paid in bonuses to SNIB staff. The outgoing chief executive’s package was £340,000 and the chief financial officer’s package was £240,000. Those amounts are way above normal public sector payments. We understand the reasons for that, but do you appreciate the public’s concern about the scale of bonuses that are being paid, while the bank is making losses?
Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
That is very helpful. Just out of interest, did you personally have any exit interviews with any of the outgoing chief executives of the bank? They have had quite a high rate of turnover. Does that cause you, as the sponsor element of the Government, any concern, given what is happening in other public bodies and the turnover rates of chief executives?
Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Thank you for clarifying. I understand that the bank has not, to date, exercised its right to exit an investment in a profitable manner. Indeed, most exits have been forced on the bank due to losses or the administration of its investments. Are you comfortable that the bank has robust exit strategies?
Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Will it increase the risk to the public purse? If, for example, a publicly owned vehicle that takes money from external sources made an investment that went bust and led to considerable losses, what exposure would the public purse have to that?
Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
In the real world, if I had a business unit that was losing millions of pounds, I would not be getting a bonus.
Public Audit Committee
“Scottish National Investment Bank”
Meeting date: 10 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Okay, but you have no concerns.
Public Audit Committee
“The 2022/23 audit of Lews Castle College”
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Right. I guess that I am playing devil’s advocate here. You can perhaps see the rationale for the college saying that, as its maximum liability in the venture is £1, it does not want a figure of £4.7 million to be in any way perceived as a potential liability, should the JV fall, for example.
Public Audit Committee
“The 2022/23 audit of Lews Castle College”
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Auditor General, in paragraph 16 of your report, you refer to “Two further material misstatements” regarding the 2022-23 accounts, which were subsequently corrected. Do you know what those “misstatements” were and why they were in the accounts in the first place?
Public Audit Committee
“The 2022/23 audit of Lews Castle College”
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Jamie Greene
Indeed, and that leads me to my final question. It might seem as if we are making a lot of fuss over a minor technical point about accounting and auditing, but the fact that you have produced a statutory report is itself unusual, which is why we are dedicating a whole hour of our committee meeting to it. Clearly, there are wider implications for other parts of the further and higher education sector where there are also joint ventures. What we are discussing here is a charitable venture, but many are not; I am aware of a number of colleges that are in financial joint ventures or which have created third-party entities with private companies for, say, apprenticeships, investment in new buildings and assets and so on. There are wider implications particularly for the college sector, which, as you acknowledged earlier, is already under incredible financial stress. Are you aware of any other areas where this could come up as an issue? Might it change the auditing practices relating to joint ventures involving colleges or other public bodies?
Public Audit Committee
“The 2022/23 audit of Lews Castle College”
Meeting date: 3 September 2025
Jamie Greene
What would your advice be to those colleges that are interested in this committee session and might be watching and thinking about their own accounting practices and the repercussions of this case?
