Revenue Scotland Board and Senior Management Team
The current board members are Aidan O'Carroll (chair), John Whiting, Lynn Bradley, Jean Lindsay, Martin McEwen and Simon Cunningham.
Aidan O'Carroll
Aidan O’Carroll is a former senior partner at EY, one of the world’s largest professional services firms, which he left in July 2020 after 35 years. Formerly Head of Tax for EY in the UK , Aidan has advised both local and global companies across a wide spectrum of tax and business issues around the world. He has considerable experience in dealing with Regulatory matters in both emerging and developed markets; he is also a regular contributor and speaker at business conferences. In addition to being the current Scottish Chair of Institute of Directors, Aidan has a number of Non-Executive Director roles in organisations based in the UK. From August 2021 he will be taking up the role of Chair of Revenue Scotland, Aidan’s extensive experience has given him insights into global trends and their connections with the rapidly changing regulatory frameworks around the world and this, is of great value to Revenue Scotland.
John Whiting CBE
John Whiting is a director of the Taxation Disciplinary Board. He was the Tax Director of the UK’s Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) from 2010-2017 and was a non-executive director of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) from 2013-2019. John was a tax partner with PwC for 25 years and then became the first Tax Policy Director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) where he was President in 2001-2002. He was a member of the High Level Implementation Group and the Deputy First Minister’s Tax Consultation Forum. He has also served as a member of the first-tier Tax Tribunal. John was awarded a CBE in 2016 for services to tax simplification and an OBE in 2008 for services to the tax profession.
Lynn Bradley
Lynn Bradley is an accountant with more than 30 years’ experience of working in the Scottish public and private sectors. She was formerly the Head of Finance for West Dunbartonshire Council, where her responsibilities included local tax collection. More recently, she was Director of Corporate Programmes & Performance with Audit Scotland. She is a former chair of CIPFA in Scotland and a former chair of the Local Authority Accounts Scotland Advisory Committee. She is currently a lecturer in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, where she specialises in audit and public sector accounting. Lynn is also a member of ICAS's Audit and Assurance panel.
Jean Lindsay
Jean Lindsay is a former Director at the Forestry Commission, where she was responsible for the leadership of all Central Services. She was formerly the Head of Profession for HR and is a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD). She has significant experience in leadership, people management, Public Sector corporate governance, health & safety and change management, including large scale organisational restructuring, where she led the highly complex transformational programme of completing the devolution of the Forestry Commission. She is a qualified Executive Coach and Myers-Briggs practitioner. She is also on the Board of Crown Estate Scotland; a Non-Legal Member of the Employment Tribunal (Scotland); and a member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
Martin McEwen
Martin McEwen is the Head of Tax at SSE plc. He joined the company in 2008 after a number of years at PwC, initially to manage international matters for the group, before taking on responsibility for all taxes. He was instrumental in SSE plc becoming the first FTSE 100 company to obtain Fair Tax Mark accreditation, and is a regular speaker on tax transparency and responsible corporate tax behaviour. He is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor, and has sat on both the Scottish Taxes Committee and the Corporate Tax Committee at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland.
Simon Cunningham
Simon Cunningham joined as a full Board Member on 1 January 2021 having previously served on the Audit & Risk Committee from 2019. Simon qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1988 and was a partner in Scott-Moncrieff for many years, leading the firm’s outsourced internal audit and risk consulting services. During his time at Scott-Moncrieff he worked with the boards and audit committees for a wide range of public sector organisations. After four years as Chief Internal Auditor at AEGON UK plc, he joined McInroy & Wood (personal investment managers) as their Director of Compliance and Group Risk, and chaired their Risk Committee for six years. He is also currently a co-opted member of the Audit & Risk Committee for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.
Senior Management Team
Elaine Lorimer, Chief Executive
Elaine Lorimer was appointed Chief Executive of Revenue Scotland in March 2016. She has over 20 years of experience working at senior executive and board level in the civil service in London and, prior to that, local government in Scotland. She is passionate about building organisational capability and driving transformational change.
She is also a qualified lawyer and public finance accountant.
From January 2012 to March 2016 she was the Chief Executive of the Law Commission of England and Wales, a statutory body charged with promoting law reform.
Previous roles include Director of Corporate Services for the National School of Government and Deputy Director at the Office of the Rail Regulator. She was also the Head of Legal and Administrative Services at Strathclyde Passenger Transport in the late 1990s.
In 2019 Elaine was awarded Chief Executive of the Year at the Scottish Women’s Awards.
Mairi Gibson, Head of Legal Services
Mairi joined Revenue Scotland in February 2020. She has been a government lawyer since 1998. Over the years she been seconded to various posts within the Government Legal Service for Scotland including the Scottish Government Legal Directorate, Scottish Parliament and the Office of the Advocate General.
Neil Ferguson, Head of Corporate Functions
Neil has been with Revenue Scotland since 2016 and has worked on the Additional Dwelling Supplement, led the Air Departure Tax programme and the development of Corporate Plans. He has responsibility for five teams: Governance, Statistics and Management Information, Strategy and Communications, Finance and IT. Previously, with the Scottish Government, he was the Bill Team Leader for the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Bill and worked on the devolved taxes legislation until 2015. He also worked on the Referendum Bill and the introduction of the Home Report which transformed the approach to buying and selling homes in Scotland.
Michael Paterson, Head of Tax
Mike is the Head of Tax at Revenue Scotland, leading a team of tax professionals and tax administration staff. He is accountable to the Chief Executive and the Board of Revenue Scotland for the operational delivery of the tax authority’s devolved tax functions.
He joined Revenue Scotland in March 2019 and has lead responsibility for the administration and compliance of the devolved taxes, ensuring they are collected and administered efficiently and effectively.
Mike has extensive knowledge and operational experience of UK taxes, particularly those dealing with international matters, resulting from 30 years as a senior tax professional with HMRC. His wide-ranging and senior tax roles have been in areas including technical, policy, investigations and management.
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