Falconer Mitchell

Falconer Mitchell is Professor of Management Accounting at the University of Edinburgh. He is chairman of the Research Board of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. His research interests lie in cost management and accounting development and change and he will talk about a recently completed research study on the developing role of the management accountant in two world class multinationals.

David Dorward

David has 38 years experience in local government finance. He has held a wide variety of posts including financial responsibility for Education, Social Work, Police, Fire, Water and Sewerage, the preparation and monitoring of the Revenue and Capital budgets and the management of Loans and Pension Funds. In May 1995 he was appointed Director of Finance for Dundee City Council. During the first year of the City Council he was involved in concluding the first local government PFI deal in Scotland.

In 2003, David’s duties within Dundee City Council were extended and his post was redesignated to Depute Chief Executive (Finance). David was a member of the CIPFA in Scotland Executive from 1999 to 2006, and in 2003 was the Chair of CIPFA in Scotland. David was appointed as Chief Executive of Dundee City Council, with effect from 1st October 2009.

Caroline Gardner

Caroline leads Audit Scotland’s work through the Public Reporting Group and the Audit Services Group. She has been Deputy Auditor General since 2000, and was appointed Controller of Audit by Scottish Ministers in 2004. She is responsible for Audit Scotland’s approach to best value and scrutiny co-ordination.

She was previously Director of Health & Social Work Studies with the Accounts Commission, responsible for developing a national programme of value for money studies in the NHS and community care when the Accounts Commission took on this role in 1995. Before this, she worked for the Audit Commission in England and Wales, managing national value for money projects on health and community care services. Caroline is a CIPFA member and has an MBA from Warwick University. Caroline was President of CIPFA in 2006/07.

Roger Latham

Roger is Visiting Fellow in the Business School at Nottingham Trent University. He was Chief Executive of Nottinghamshire County Council, from February 2002, to April 2008. He was County Treasurer of Nottinghamshire between April 1991 and January 2002 having had two spells as Acting Chief Executive in 2001. He had previously been Deputy County Treasurer at Nottinghamshire from January 1990 to March 1991, and before that was Assistant Chief Finance Officer at Dudley Metropolitan Borough where he had been for 14 years.

Roger is trained as an Economist, and is a chartered statistician. He worked first in the City and then from 1976 in local government. He came to accountancy late, having converted as a senior officer under the CIPFA scheme. He has applied his analytical and statistical skills in a wide range of local government fields. He is a past President to the Society of County Treasurers and was active in the pensions field, publishing a book on pensions investment returns and the environment.

Graham Leicester

Graham is Director and founder of The International Futures Forum - an international group of some 30 strategic thinkers dedicated to developing the capacity to sustain human aspiration in a complex and challenging world.

IFF works with businesses, governments and communities. Its early meetings were all held in Scotland and much of its practical project work in areas of health, learning, enterprise and governance was first developed in response to Scottish concerns. IFF played a critical role in helping to establish Scotland's Futures Forum for the Scottish Parliament in late 2004 and has been engaged in the My Future's in Falkirk programme for economic transformation.

John Matheson

John Matheson has been Director of Finance within the Scottish Government Health Directorates since July 2008.  Prior to that he was Director of Finance for NHS Lothian since 2000.  He won the prestigious title of Finance Director of the Year – Public Sector in 2004 and is particularly committed to Continuous Professional Development for Finance Teams with a specific focus on Organisational Development and matrix working.  He took his first degree at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh and obtained his MBA from Edinburgh University.  He has been Chair of the Scottish Branch of CIPFA and is currently a member of CIPFA’s UK Council.

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Grahame Smith

Grahame was appointed as the STUC's Deputy General Secretary in 1996. In that role he headed the STUC's Policy and Campaigns Department and had specific responsibility for the STUC's work on lifelong learning and public services. He was appointed as General Secretary in December 2005.

Grahame is a member of the Scottish Union Learning Fund Advisory Committee and of the Board of Scottish Union Learning. He is also a member of the National Workforce Plus Partnership Board and the Board of SCDI. He was appointed to the Board of Scottish Enterprise in December 2008.

John Swinney MSP

Born in 1964, John Swinney MSP joined the Scottish National Party in 1979 and went on to graduate from Edinburgh University with an MA (Hons) in Politics. He has worked for the Scottish Coal Project, Development Options and Scottish Amicable.

Prior to his election as Westminster MP for North Tayside in 1997, he held a number of posts in the SNP at local and national level. In 1999, he became the MSP for Tayside North, remaining as the constituency's MP until standing down from Westminster at the 2001 General Election.

Having served as the SNP's Deputy Leader since 1998 and became Leader in 2000. After relinquishing his post in 2004, Mr Swinney became Convener of the Scottish Parliament's European and External Relations Committee. He was re-elected as an MSP at the 2007 Scottish Parliament election and appointed Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.  John has two children and is married to Elizabeth Quigley. He lives near Blairgowrie in his constituency and his hobbies include cycling and hill walking.

Alan Trench

Alan Trench joined Edinburgh Law School in October 2007, as Research Fellow in the Political Economy of Multi-level Governance funded by the Swiss Confederation. Before coming to Edinburgh, Alan was at the Constitution Unit at University College London, between 2001 and 2007 (and he remains honorary senior research fellow there).

Alan’s interests are in the institutional and policy-making aspects of territorial politics. At the Constitution Unit he edited three volumes in its series of devolution yearbooks The State of the Nations. He also edited, and wrote much of, a book on intergovernmental relations in the UK entitled Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom.

Before becoming an academic, Alan trained and practised in England as a solicitor, specialising in public law work. He worked for Bristol and Leicester City Councils, Nottinghamshire County Council and on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link project.

At Edinburgh, Alan is working on a comparative project about territorial political economy, and the changing nature of the ‘fiscal constitution’ – broadly speaking, the relationship between financial systems and welfare provision – in a number of European federal and decentralised states.

Geoffrey Wood

Geoffrey Wood went to the University of Warwick in 1968 as Lecturer in Economics and then spent two years as Visiting Economist with the Bank of England, where he was more recently, from 1994 to 2004, a Special Advisor on Financial Stability.

In 1975, he joined City University. He was Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis from 1977-1978, has also advised the New Zealand Treasury on a wide range of issues, and has also been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and served as research adviser at the Bank of Finland. Professor Wood has held a number of visiting professorships and is editor of several economic journals.

Molly Lewis

Molly is Head of Consulting for Local and Devolved Government in London and is an experienced Local Government Practitioner, Regulator and Consultant. She has been working in the Local Government Environment for 25 years and has worked with over 40 different councils. She has deep understanding of effective corporate performance in councils and the partnership environment.

Molly Lewis is an Executive Consultant with Capgemini Consulting specialising in Local Government. She has a broad range of experience from within local government itself, the regulatory sector and the consultancy sector.

Jim Murphy

Jim Murphy was born and brought up in Arden in Glasgow. His family later emigrated to South Africa but he returned to Scotland aged 18 to study at Strathclyde University, from where he went on to chair the National Union of Students (NUS) in Scotland, and later the UK NUS. He was first elected to Parliament in 1997 representing the Eastwood constituency, and subsequently served as PPS to then-Scottish Secretary Helen Liddell and, following the 2002 general election, as a Government whip.

He was re-elected at the 2005 general election to the same constituency, now re-named East Renfrewshire, and was promoted to ministerial rank as Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Cabinet Office, with responsibilities including e-government, better regulation and public service modernisation. In May 2006 he was appointed Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform, with a brief also covering child poverty, and since June 2007 he has served as Minister of State for Europe, where his responsibilities included the European Union; the Balkans; and liaison with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and NATO.

He was appointed as Secretary of State for Scotland on 3rd October 2008.

Colin Miller

As Reward Manager at Kent County Council, Colin has been responsible for the delivery of the authority’s comprehensive and challenging Reward Strategy. This includes harmonisation of pay structures, the delivery of Single Status to one of the largest local authorities in the country, ensuring fair and transparent job grading and introducing targeted approaches to recognise and reward personal delivery. This also includes developing a highly competitive range of employee focused benefits and policies. Colin understands that Reward can address some of the key challenges HR faces with recruitment, retention and talent management particularly given the ever demanding employee.

Colin started his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Pfizer spending 5 years within research before moving into HR in 1995. Responsibilities included competitive market analysis, managing the pay processes for the Operation Divisions and lead UK business partner for the implementation of a global HR IT system. He is currently a committee member of the CIPD Reward Forum.

John Wright

John joined Hymans Robertson in 2005 as an Actuary and was appointed Head of the Public Sector Consulting in 2007. Before that, John worked in a variety of positions with insurance companies including Prudential plc where his work included annuity pricing and development of new products

Other professional activities
John is a member of the Association of Consulting Actuaries

Other activities
John is married with two young daughters. Outside of work, John devotes most of his time to his family.

Gerald Johnson

Gerald Johnson has spent over 35 years involved in public services – sometimes from within the public sector and other times from the outside as an advisor or as an outsourcer. Key roles have been:

• Commercial Director for Capgemini’s HMRC account

• Strategy Director for EDS

• Director of Change Management for South West Regional Health Authority

• Chief Executive of Bristol and District Health Authority

• Non Executive Director of Southern Arts

• Non Executive Director of South West Information Technology

• Head of Healthcare Practice for Ernst & Young

• Manager of Fulham Social Security Office

• Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Social Services

Gerald now lives in Edinburgh and leads Accenture’s health & public services work in Scotland.

Councillor Ken Guild

Born in Dundee

Educated at Harris Academy, Dartmouth Naval College and Dundee University

Retired in 2007 after 30 years on the teaching staff of Dundee College

First elected to the Broughty Ferry Ward of the then Dundee District Council on 13 December 1984.

Appointed SNP Group Leader in May 2007

Became Leader of the Council 30 March 2009

Peter Reekie

Peter Reekie is a civil engineer by training with over 10 years of experience in advising both the public and private sectors on major infrastructure investment projects. He has experience of traditional capital procurement and a variety of PPP structures from PFI through to a range of joint venture models.

As a project finance advisor with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Peter has advised on some of the most significant and innovative projects in Scotland over recent years, from the £300m new acute hospital project for NHS Forth Valley through Glasgow City Council’s partnership for property and ICT services and the NHS partnership for clinical services delivery at Stracathro to the Replacement Forth Crossing.

Recently Peter was part of the team that delivered the Scottish Government’s Business Case for the Scottish Futures Trust and worked on secondment to the Government to establish the new organisation. He is now seconded directly to the SFT, as an interim manager and it is in that role that he is here today.

Julie Lindsay

Julie joined the water industry in 2003. She specialises in public sector and is responsible for developing and maintaining long-term, secure and profitable relationships with customers. She maintains a strategic overview and understanding of the issues facing the public sector.

As a result of her customer and industry knowledge, Julie has played a key part in delivering projects, which have generated significant financial savings for her customers.