Public Finance Live Scotland 2024 speakers.
Carol Culley OBE, Commissioner, Woking Borough Council, CIPFA President
Carol's most recent role was Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer at Manchester City Council. She was the Council’s Section 151 Officer and has responsibility for Finance and Procurement, Commercial Governance, Revenues and Benefits and Customer, Internal Audit, HROD, ICT and Capital Programme Delivery. Carol led Manchester’s transformation programme and the Zero Carbon Action Plan, whilst also serving as the Senior Responsible Officer for Factory International and Our Town Hall projects.
Her previous roles in Manchester include Assistant Chief Executive for Finance and Performance, and Assistant Director of Finance and Commissioning for Social Services. Carol has a wealth of experience in financial management, governance and assurance and fulfilling trustee roles. She is CIPFA qualified, has a diploma in management and is a member of the CIPFA Council. Carol is CIPFA President for the year 2024/2025.
Joanne Brown, Chair, CIPFA Scotland Branch
Jo Brown has over 20 years’ experience of working with public sector organisations in Scotland and England. Jo joined PwC as a graduate trainee specialising in external audit and internal audit, across the NHS, Local Government and Central Government and became CIPFA qualified in 2005. She joined Grant Thornton UK LLP in 2015 to lead their Public Sector team and became a Partner in July 2019. More recently, Jo has taken on a leadership role for our Public Sector team in London, leading a portfolio of NHS and Local government clients and a team of 140 people. In her external audit role she has worked with a number of high profile organisations across the public sector, including supporting Audit Scotland in statutory reporting covering financial statements and the wider scope, Value for money reporting. Jo became chair of the CIPFA Scotland branch in June 2023.
Laura Miller, Journalist and Broadcaster
Laura Miller is the face of BBC One Scotland’s flagship news programme, Reporting Scotland. Prior to joining the BBC she was a reporter and presenter with STV news. Laura has been on the front line of reporting and presenting news in Scotland for the past two decades and has covered some of the biggest stories of recent times; from the Independence Referendum, to the Covid pandemic, the COP 26 climate conference, Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and most recently Scotland’s joyous (but ultimately ill-fated) Euros campaign and the General Election. She studied Law and French at Glasgow University and has an MA in broadcast journalism from Falmouth University in Cornwall. The thing she’s asked about most is her cameo in the Marvel superhero movie, Avengers: Infinity War. She knew nothing about it until the story appeared in the paper. And she still hasn’t seen the film.
Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.
Educated at Alva Academy, she went on to graduate from Glasgow University with a Social Sciences MA and Jordanhill College with a Postgraduate Certificate in Community Education. She previously worked for Glasgow City Council’s Social Work Department. Shona was MSP for the North East from 1999-2003 before being elected MSP for Dundee East in 2003 (now renamed Dundee City East). Latterly she was Shadow Minister for Health and Social Justice and a member of the Parliament’s Health Committee. She was appointed Minister for Public Health in the minority Scottish Government formed after the May 2007 election. In February 2009, she additionally assumed responsibility for the sport remit and her title changed to Minister for Public Health and Sport. After the 2011 election, Shona was made Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport. In 2014, with additional responsibilities for Equalities and Pensioners’ Rights being added to her portfolio, she became a full member of the Scottish Cabinet and served as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport until June 2018. Following the 2021 election, Shona was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, and in March 2023, she was the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance.
Owen Mapley, Chief Executive, CIPFA
Owen was appointed as CEO of CIPFA in July 2024. Prior to joining CIPFA he spent five years as Chief Executive of Hertfordshire County Council and three years as the council’s Executive Director of Resources and s151/Chief Finance Officer.
His time in local government followed an eight-year tenure in the Senior Civil Service, where he held Finance Director positions at the Home Office, HM Courts Service, and the Legal Aid Agency.
Owen began his professional career with PWC, spending 12 years in professional services working with a wide range of private and public sector clients and qualifying as a chartered accountant. In addition to his operational responsibilities at HCC, Owen was a member of his local system’s Integrated Care Board alongside NHS and voluntary sector partners.
Owen’s additional leadership roles also included terms as lead local authority Chief Executive for the East of England region and as Vice-Chair of the Association of County Chief Executives.
Alix Bedford, Risk Proposition Manager, Zurich Municipal
Alix is a strategic risk professional with over 16 years of experience working both with and within the public sector. Her current role sees her using these skills to manage the public services segment within Zurich Municipal, while continuing to provide and commission strategic risk management solutions including risk insight, training and coaching. Alix started her career as a strategic risk consultant, before spending seven years as the lead officer for risk and performance management at a Unitary Local Authority.
She has experience in a variety of fields including policy development, corporate planning, performance management, programme and project management and business resilience, is a member of the Institute of Risk Management, and was their certificate qualification student of the year for 2016.
Adam Pollock, Senior Consultant, Hays
A senior recruitment consultant at Hays specialising in the recruitment of Interim Senior Finance roles across Glasgow and the west within both the public and private sector. During his time at Hays, Adam has developed a thorough understanding of the Senior Finance market, and the unique challenges which arise within the private, public and third sector recruitment using both a candidate and client perspective to understand the full picture.
Elaine Ashton, Client Engagement Director, Hays
Elaine has over 12 years’ experience specialising in Finance recruitment, and she specialises in the public sector. Elaine works with clients at a strategic level to develop agile campaign processes, providing long-term guidance and support to clients across the public sector, advising on a range of talent attraction strategies and solutions. Elaine has worked in a number of markets with extreme candidate shortages, and as such, has specialist experience in candidate attraction methodology, developing an effective employee value propositions for the attraction of external candidates.
Jyoti Banerjee, CEO and co-founder of North Star Transition
North Star Transition aims to accelerate systemic change and Jyoti was part of the team that created the Integrated Reporting movement globally. Jyoti has been an impact investor for two decades and used to be an entrepreneur in the tech sector. He taught technology entrepreneurship at Said Business School, University of Oxford. Jyoti grew up in New Delhi and lives in London.
Vicki Bibby, Chief Operating Officer, Audit Scotland
Vicki was appointed Chief Operating Officer for Audit Scotland in August 2022. She reports to the Auditor General for Scotland and the Audit Scotland Board. Vicki also works closely with the Accounts Commission. Prior to that, Vicki spent 15 years at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). She progressed from Policy Manager to Chief Officer for Finance and then Head of Resource, where her responsibilities included local government finance and strategic planning. Vicki is committed to public services that improve the lives of Scotland’s people and has 20 years’ experience in the public sector through a variety of roles. Vicki completed her accountancy training with KPMG LLP and is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.
Professor Jim Gallagher, Chair, Our Scottish Future
Jim was a UK civil servant, in Edinburgh and Whitehall. In Edinburgh he has been head of the Scottish justice department, of the Local Government group, and private secretary to two Secretaries of State for Scotland. In London he was twice a member of No 10 policy units under Prime Ministers Blair and then Brown, and Secretary to the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution. After leaving government, he advised the Better Together campaign in the 2014 referendum. In 2005 he was made Visiting Professor in Glasgow University and from 2011 was Gwylim Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. Since 2017 has held an honorary professorship at the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research at St Andrews University.
Sarah Gowanlock, Partnerships Manager for the Food for Life Scotland programme, Soil Association Scotland
Through her role, Sarah grows collaborative partnerships and initiatives across the food systems sector in Scotland, working to embed the Food for Life approach and drive positive change. Sarah has worked as part of the Food for Life Scotland team since 2018, which supports local authorities and other public sector settings to achieve the Food for Life Served Here certification, a catering framework for serving fresh, local and sustainable meals.
Professor Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy, University of Oxford
Dieter is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford. Previously, he was Independent Chair of the Natural Capital Committee, providing advice to the government on the sustainable use of natural capital. Dieter specialises in Energy & Climate, Regulation, Utilities & Infrastructure and Natural Capital & the Environment. He provides extensive expert advice to UK and European governments, regulators and companies across all three areas. Dieter is a Vice President of the Exmoor Society, a Vice President of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, and Honorary Fellow, Brasenose College, Oxford.
Lord Holmes of Richmond MBE - Life Member of the House of Lords
Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer and an active member of the House of Lords with a policy focus on digital technology for public good. Lord Holmes is a passionate advocate for the potential of technology and the benefits of diversity and inclusion with a particular interest in technologies such as AI and blockchain and areas of application such as fintech and trade. In Parliament, he specializes in legislation that deals with technology and inclusion, introducing Private Members Bills on the regulation of artificial intelligence and banning unpaid work experience. He was integral to the passing of the ground-breaking Electronic Trade Documents Bill.
Ruth Kydd, Insurance Manager, City of Edinburgh Council
Ruth started working in insurance in 2004 and has worked in insurance with Local Government since 2015. Her current role is Insurance Manager for the City of Edinburgh Council, and she is Chair for the Scotland branch of ALARM
Diana Melville, Governance Advisor, CIPFA
Diana is lead advisor for the Better Governance Forum and is CIPFA’s representative on the Internal Audit Standards Advisory Board. She is a CIPFA-qualified accountant and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Prior to joining the institute in 2008 she was head of internal audit at Salisbury Council, and held other audit roles in local government and at the National Audit Office. She is part of the CIPFA working group that developed the Good Governance Framework for Local Government (2016) and supports other CIPFA policy initiatives and publications on governance, internal audit and counter fraud.
Stuart Nibloe, Principal Accountant (Treasury) Renfrewshire Council
Stuart originally started as a CIPFA trainee accountant in late 2009 with East Ayrshire Council qualifying in 2013 before moving onto his current position with Renfrewshire Council in 2022. He has been actively involved with CIPFA Scotland since 2015 and takes a keen interest in being part of events designed to help students and members.
Ian Owen, Local Government Industry Director, TechnologyOne
Ian is a CIPFA fellow who started his local government finance career in the 1980s qualifying as an Accounting Technician before studying for CIPFA while at Blackpool and Preston City Councils. On leaving local government Ian worked for the Department of Work and Pensions before moving into consultancy.
Ian has spent the last 20+ years at several major suppliers providing a variety of solutions and transformational services to the public sector with a significant focus on Local Government back office enterprise solutions. As TechnologyOne’s Local Government Industry Director, Ian helps unitary and district councils digitally transform and leverage world-class ERP SaaS solutions, helping them do more with less. Ian was elected to the CIPFA Council for 2023/25 representing the North West region of England.
Hannah Perry, Lead Researcher, Demos
Hannah is a Lead Researcher at Demos-the cross-party think tank focused on putting people at the heart of policymaking. Hannah recently led a study exploring the role of disinformation in the response to Low Traffic Neighbourhood policy in local information ecosystems with a view to understanding how and why tensions arose. She brings over a decade of experience in research for behaviour change policy programmes and is currently completing an MSc in the Social Science of the Internet.
Shaun Purves, Finance Business Partner, Scottish Qualifications Authority
Shaun started his accountancy career through a Graduate Trainee Accountant post with Scottish Borders Council in 2018, qualifying in 2021 and working in various posts before moving on to lead the Finance function for the Culture and Leisure Trust Live Borders. Shaun is now a Finance Business Partner at the Scottish Qualifications Authority. He has been involved with CIPFA Scotland since 2020 and previously supported students nationally through the CIPFA Student Network.
Richard Robinson, Senior Manager, Audit Scotland
Richard is Audit Scotland’s performance audit lead for Scottish devolved fiscal powers, wider public finances and the reform agenda. In recent years this has included auditing the Scottish Government’s approach to Covid-19 spending, the public sector workforce and financial planning. He began his career in financial audit in England where he gained his CIPFA qualification before moving to Scotland to focus on performance audit. Richard has represented Audit Scotland as an expert lead for the fiscal framework, national long-term performance outcomes and equalities budgeting. He believes in the importance of the close links between financial and performance reporting to show the difference public money makes. Richard is a keen proponent of public sector reform, heading up Audit Scotland’s engagement with a wide variety of public sector leaders on reform activity and the role of public audit.
Professor Richard Simmons, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling
Richard has a long-established record of high-quality research in the field of public policy and public services. He recently led an ESRC-funded research project looking at optimising outcomes for local communities through procurement and partnering. As the world moves through a series of crises from Covid-19, war in Europe and the cost of living, Richard is keen to consider the role and potential of procurement and partnering through a series of new lenses, as a lever for improving community outcomes.
Alyson Stafford CBE, Director General, Scottish Exchequer
Alyson advises the Scottish Ministers and Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Government, with an annual budget of £50bn. She was the driving force in the creation of the SE, defining its purpose, vision and metrics. She is chair of the Infrastructure Investment Board, developing the National Infrastructure Mission for Scotland. Previously, Alyson was Director General of Finance for the Scottish Government. This included period of minority governments and coalitions, the global financial crisis and the Scottish independence referendum. Alyson’s earlier career was spent at the forefront of transformational change in the Health Service across both England and Scotland, where she led strategic, operational and corporate services as a Chief Executive and Director of Finance. She holds an MA (Oxon), is an Associate Chartered Accountant of the ICAEW, and was awarded honorary membership of the CIPFA and the ICAS.
Johnathan Williamson, Technology Director, TechnologyOne
Johnathan joined TechnologyOne in 2016 to extend the SaaS Platform team into the United Kingdom and support our customers in the region. Having worked in the Technology space for in excess of 20 years his main focus has been on building high performing engineering teams who delight customers and are constantly curious of new and emerging technologies. In previous roles, Johnathan has worked closely with some of the United Kingdoms best known brands including Skyscanner, The Royal Horticultural Society and WeBuyAnyCar - helping to design, support and maintain their infrastructure needs along the way.
Dr Greg Stride Senior Researcher, LGIU
Greg is a senior researcher at the Local Democracy Research Centre at the LGIU where he has led projects on local government finance in England and Scotland and electoral administration. Before joining the LGIU, Greg completed a PhD at the University of Exeter on electoral administration in England, where he also taught social science research methods.
Stephen Sawers, Head of Facilities Management, Glasgow City Council
Stephen started his career in the private sector and worked initially in the Contact Centre Industry with Lloyds bank. His management career took him to Scottish Power and Three mobile where he was responsible for customer contact both in telephony and back-office correspondence.
A move to Glasgow City Council took place in 2009 which has included Leadership roles in Customer Contact and back-office administration. In September 2019 Stephen took responsibility for leading Catering and Facilities Management Services with a notable milestone in June 2021 where Glasgow received the Food for Life served here Bronze Award. Further achievements continued with Catering & FM & Soil Association Scotland winning the Healthy- Living Innovation Award at the Scottish School Food Awards in 2022.
Stephen continues to lead the team on a “food Journey” and is a key player in delivering service priorities as well as the strategic focus on the Glasgow City Food Plan and preparations for Good Food Nation.