ICAS Public Sector Panel

John Baillie

John advises clients on share and business valuations. He is a Board Member of the Gambling Commission, a Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the ICAS Brexit Advisory Group. He is the former Chair of the Accounts Commission and former chair of Audit Scotland. Previously, he was a partner at KPMG (in Scotland and London) and a Member of the Reporting Panel of the Competition and Markets Authority.

He is a former Johnstone Smith Professor of Accounting at Glasgow University and was a Member of the Burt Committee on Local Government Finance Review that reported in 2006. In 2017, he stepped down as a Trustee of the ICAS Foundation after a number of years.

Nick Bennett

Nick is a partner in Scott-Moncrieff, responsible for delivering audit, assurance and advisory services to UK public sector and not-for-profit bodies. Nick's experience has covered local government, NHS, further education and central government as well as appointments to public corporations.

He is a member of CIPFA/LASAAC and also sits on LASAAC. Nick is a member of the Moore Stephens UK Public Sector Steering Group which is responsible for the strategic development of services to the public sector across the UK.

Russell Frith

Russell was Assistant Auditor General at Audit Scotland until December 2017. He was responsible for the appointment of auditors, quality of audit, technical support for auditors and overseeing the National Fraud Initiative in Scotland. He has also been a member of a number of auditing and accounting standards bodies.

Previously he was Director of Audit Strategy after being the Director of Financial Audit in the National Audit Office in Edinburgh. Prior to that, he worked in the private sector in audit and corporate finance roles as well as being a finance director in the financial services sector. He qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG. Russell now undertakes various non-executive and charitable roles.

Alan Gray

Alan Gray CA is the Infrastructure Planning Lead within Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate.  In addition to his responsibilities regarding infrastructure, Alan is the Senior Responsible Officer for the National Treatment Centre Programme and supports the Directorate in terms of strategic financial planning, sustainability and value and the national vaccinations programme.

Prior to taking up his current post, Alan was the Director of Finance in NHS Grampian and spent 25 years in professional practice, latterly as a Director with PwC.

Lorna Meahan

Lorna Meahan is the Director of Corporate Services at Dumfries and Galloway Council. Dumfries and Galloway is the third largest region in Scotland and the Council operates with a revenue budget of £350 million and over 6,500 staff. A member of the Council’s senior leadership team, Lorna is responsible for a wide range of professional and support services, including strategic planning and policy, organisational development, ICT, finance, procurement, human resources, legal and democratic support, performance and improvement and communications. A native of Glasgow Lorna has experience in both the public and private sectors.

She is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and qualified as a CA with BDO Stoy Hayward. Previously she was an Assistant Director with Audit Scotland, working with a wide range of public sector organisations and latterly leading the development of the in-house financial audit approach. She has been with Dumfries and Galloway Council since 2010, initially as Assistant Chief Executive.

Alasdair Pinkerton

Alasdair is currently an Associate Director at NHS NSS in their Practitioner & Counter Fraud Services department. He graduated with Joint Honours in Accountancy and Taxation from Glasgow University and then joined and qualified with Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co (now part of KPMG) working on audit, tax, investigations and advisory work with a broad range of clients.

He was seconded to the Scottish Office to work on electricity privatisation, and following a brief return to KPMG he transferred permanently to the public sector, working in a number of roles in health.

Stephen Reid

Stephen leads EY’s Scottish Government and public sector assurance practice.  Stephen also leads EY’s UK Higher Education Centre of Excellence.  Prior to joining EY he was with KPMG for over 14 years.  In his role he is responsible for leading assurance services to publicly funded and not-for-profit bodies in Scotland and the north of England, a key element of which was appointments made by Audit Scotland. Stephen was also responsible for leading external audit services to a large range of Scottish higher education institutions.

Stephen has over 20 years’ experience in the delivery of external and internal audit, advisory and other assurance services across the public and not-for-profit sectors, including local government, health, central government, further education, higher education, housing associations and national and international charities, covering clients of all sizes and complexities.

David Watt (Chair)

David Watt was a director with KPMG until autumn 2014, responsible for assurance services principally to publicly-funded bodies in central and local government, the NHS, further/higher education and housing, as well as a number of not-for-profit bodies and charities. David is now a non-executive director/trustee of a number of organisations, including membership of each board’s audit committees and chair of two.

He is also an independent, external member of the audit committees of Scottish Canals and the University of Glasgow. He served as an ICAS representative on the Local Authority (Scotland) Accounts Advisory Committee between 2012 and 2014. David is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.