Meeting of the Revenue Scotland Board
14 May 2025
10:00 - 14:00, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh
1. Meeting opening
1.1 The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Morag Angus from the Scottish Government, who attended as an observer.
1.2 The Chair noted that this was Martin McEwen’s last Board meeting before stepping down in June. He extended his thanks on behalf of the Board to Martin for his contributions over the past six years and recognised his valuable contribution as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.
1.3 The Chair also noted that John Whiting had attended his last Tax Assurance Group (TAG) meeting. He was also recognised for his contributions to Tax at a CIOT reception. The Chair had sent a personal note of thanks on behalf of the Board.
Apologies
1.4 Apologies were received from Rt. Hon. Ken Macintosh.
New Declarations of Interest
1.5 No new declaration of interests were recorded.
Draft minutes
1.6 The Board approved the minutes of the Board meeting held on 5 February 2025 and the Board meeting held on 19 February 2025 as drafted.
Action and decision log
1.7 The Head of Corporate Operations introduced the action log, noting open actions and providing updates as needed.
1.8 It was agreed that actions A66/23, A77/23, A20/24, A39/24, A40/24, A41/24, A42/24, A43/24, A44/24, A45/24, A46/24, A47/24, A48/24, A49/24, A50/24, A51/24, A52/24 and A53/24 would be closed. All other actions remain open.
2. Chair's update
2.1 The Chair provided an update on the Board recruitment, announcing that ministerial approval has been granted for the appointment of two new Board members. The induction process will begin once the vetting is complete.
2.2 The Chair provided the Board with an update on the recruitment process for the new Chief Executive. The interview panel is expected to make recommendations by the end of June.
2.3 The Board agreed the proposal that Robert MacIntosh should be appointed as the Deputy Chair of the ARC.
3. Staffing and Equalities Committee (SEC) update
3.1 Idong Usoro, Deputy Chair of SEC, provided an update from the SEC meeting of the 13 March 2025. He noted that Elizabeth Barnes attended her first meeting as a newly co-opted member.
3.2 The SEC Deputy Chair confirmed the Committee was satisfied with the SEC Dashboard and risk position. While areas like anxiety and discrimination remain challenging, the Committee is assured that SLT is actively monitoring and addressing these through priority actions and the People Strategy plan
3.3 SEC discussed points to strengthen the People Strategy and requested that People Services work with Elizabeth on an updated version (presented to the Board later in the meeting).
3.4 The Committee also discussed the results of the staff survey that had been remitted by the Board. The results were overall very positive, some areas of discrepancy were highlighted and discussed, in particular some missing data from SG and in the survey questions – these were going to be taken away by the team for actioning.
3.5 The Committee felt assured and agreed that the organisation should focus on maintaining high levels of staff satisfaction and continuing to be an employer of choice, ranked highly in the public sector. The RS Chair congratulated the organisation on an excellent set of results.
3.6 The CEO updated the Board on SG’s position on Hybrid working. The Board was informed that this applied to SG core only and that public bodies were given the scope to put in place their own arrangements. The Board was assured that the current RS Hybrid model continues to meet the organisation’s needs.
4. Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) update
4.1 Simon Cunningham updated the Board on the ARC meeting that had taken place on the 19 March. He noted the attendance of two new co-opted ARC members, Stephen Ramsay and Julie Hesketh-Laird.
4.2 The Committee had agreed Robert MacIntosh’s nomination as ARC Deputy Chair, which the Board approved earlier in the Board meeting.
4.3 The Committee had confirmed that the proposed timescales for the Annual Report and Accounts aligned with their expectations and those of Audit Scotland and that they were on track to be presented to the Board for approval on 2 October 2025. A focus of the audit will be the move to Oracle Fusion from the previous finance system. Audit Scotland will be seeking assurances centrally and feed these into the audits of all the impacted delivery bodies.
4.4 Internal Audit confirmed that the 2024/25 audit plan was on track, with all reviews expected to be completed and reported to the June ARC meeting. They also presented the draft Annual Audit plan. ARC had discussed the timing of the audits, expressing a desire for the Budgeting and Finance review to be undertaken early in the year.
4.5 ARC had also received an update on the actions undertaken following the annual BCP exercise, an update on the plans for the replacement of Direct Debit functionality being withdrawn by the Scottish Government and a presentation from Zac O’Neil, Head of SG Counter Fraud.
4.6 The Board was also advised that ARC had completed its Annual Review of Effectiveness, there were no areas of concern identified, and that ARC felt well supported by the Governance Team.
4.7 The Board agreed that input from Stephen Ramsay (co-opted ARC member) would be welcomed to identify whether there is anything further we should do to build resilience.
4.8 The Board thanked the ARC Chair for the detailed update.
5. Chief Executive's report
5.1 The Chief Executive updated the Board on meetings with Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee MSP, Ross Grier MSP, HMRC and the Welsh Revenue Authority.
5.2 She also informed the Board that there had been an increase in FOI requests but that this was in hand.
5.3 The Board noted the good progress on Health and Safety and the work on getting the risk assessments in place for aggregates tax. They requested further information in respect of the DDaT programme and asked for a fuller update to be brought to the next Board meeting.
6. People Strategy
6.1 The Head of People Services presented the People Strategy, noting that feedback from SEC and Elizabeth Barnes had been incorporated in the version tabled.
6.2 The Chair of SEC commended the work undertaken to get the Strategy to this point, highlighting its fit with the Corporate Plan and is an easy-to-follow document. Discussion followed on the need to revisit the wording and proposed metrics (where provided) of the success measures, to ensure they were measurable and that thought was also needed on how to baseline and contextualise them in operating plans.
6.3 The Chair thanked the Head of People Services for the work on producing a strong document setting out the organisation’s ambitions and measures.
7. Strategy day follow up: Tax development
7.1 The Head of Business Development presented a paper on the role RS could play in reforming the administration of Non-Domestic Rates (NDR).
7.2 The Board welcomed the paper and discussed the need to ensure that government support for Revenue Scotland’s involvement in this space was in place before proceeding.
7.3 The Chief Executive outlined recent stakeholder engagement and confirmed the next step is to develop a business case to gain support for the proposals. The Committee noted the value of referencing similar models in Denmark, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Feedback highlighted the importance of addressing technical challenges, particularly around standardising data for unique taxpayer identification across local authorities and partners.
7.4 Agreement on technical standards to support system integration and data sharing, both within Scotland and with external partners such as HMRC and WRA was identified as a key area for further exploration. It was noted that this is considered as part of the proposed planned engagement with local authorities.
7.5 The Chair thanked the Head of Business Development for the paper and progressing the work to this stage.
8. SLfT debt position
8.1 The Board was provided with a summary of the SLfT Debt Position Paper, followed by a discussion of the environmental and societal impacts associated with the various case scenarios outlined in the paper. The Board emphasised the importance of timely sharing of information and insights. It was agreed that the Board would make future decisions regarding executing debt on a case-by-case basis and through the Board consent process.
8.2 The Chair requested that an SLfT Industry update be provided at a future meeting.
9. New devolved taxes reporting dashboard
9.1 The Head of Tax introduced the reporting dashboard noting no concerns. He highlighted that the main area of focus was the SBSL legislation. The Chair welcomed the update and was pleased that Revenue Scotland was on target with what is within its control.
9.2 The Board had a brief discussion on DDaT and requested regular updates on the DDaT programme similar to what is provided for the new taxes dashboard.
10. Q4 performance report
10.1 The Head of Corporate Functions presented key points of the Q4 Performance Report to the Board, informing the Board that the exact figures for tax collection would be available once the final report for the 2024-25 financial year was produced and taken into consideration.
10.2 Board members discussed the spike in days lost and clarity as to why this was. It was agreed that this would be taken to the SEC meeting in July to discuss.
Action: The Secretariat to include clarification regarding the spike on the agenda for the next SEC meeting
10.3 The Board also discussed success measure 5, on diversity, and asked why there was no data available on recruitment. They requested a wider update on this measure. The Board was advised that a break-down of RS’s staff headcount, demonstrating the division between permanent and temporary staff employed through recruitment agencies will be discussed at the SEC meeting in July.
11. Presentation delivered by Steph Wright
11.1 The Head of the Scottish AI Alliance, Steph Wright, delivered a presentation on AI and Scotland’s National AI Strategy. The Board discussed the potential use of AI for data processing, the differences between AI and other data-driven technologies, the development of LLM tools by public bodies and the necessity of ring-fencing those tools to ensure that nothing is taken from the Internet by AI. The Board also asked about the prospects for a peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing network in Scotland related to the use of AI in the public sector.
12. AOB
12.1 No items of AoB were raised.
12.2 The Chair confirmed that the next Board meeting would be held on 27 August 2025. The Board moved to a private session at 13.40.
End of Meeting
14 May 2025