The McAllan’s
Senior Civil Servant – Mary McAllan –
Mary’s civil service career began in 1993 when she joined the then-Scottish Office. has developed across a range of areas. Her first post was in health where she was involved in the market reforms of the early 1990s moving thereafter to food safety and the creation of the Food Standards Agency.
Since the 1998 Scotland Act and Devolution Mary has worked in rural affairs (including the 2001 Foot and Mouth Outbreak), business and economic development, public service reform, fisheries management, HR and organisational development as well as the Principal Private Secretary to the the First Minister. Her annual salary is around £120,000.
She is married to SNP activist, Biggar resident and retired policeman, Ian McAllan. They have three daughters: Mairi: An excellent Scottish songstress. A Cabinet member of the SNP Scottish Government. Kathryn: Recently completed her MA (Hons) in Fine Art at Edinburgh University. A gifted artist she was selected by the Federation of British Artists (FBA) to exhibit her work at the Mall Galleries, London. Eilidh: Talented photographer. She is attending Glasgow University.
After retiring from the police force Ian worked for Clydesdale MSP, Aileen Campbell who was to become involved in a resignation controversy when the MSP and cabinet minister took a new post as Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Women’s Football in July 2021 and received a £75,000 “golden goodbye” from her MSP role to help adjust to life after politics despite already lining up a new job while still in government. She was also paid a resettlement grant of £64,470 after quitting as an MSP, plus £12,112 for the loss of her ministerial office.
Ian was appointed Provost of South Lanarkshire Council SNP-led administration, shortly after his election as a councillor in 2017. In 2022, despite having again been returned as the largest party, the outgoing SNP administration was replaced by a coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors, with Conservative support. Outgoing Provost Ian McAllan stood down but retained his Councillor post.
The estimated gross annual expenditure charged to the Scottish taxpayer for supporting the McAllans is between £450,000 – £500,000.
The many roles of Senior Civil Servant Mary McAllan
Glasgow Community Planning Partners Group – Mary McAllan – SG
Partners in Glasgow have a shared responsibility to deliver on the Single Outcome Agreement. Partners aim to improve outcomes by focusing on prevention, better targeting of resources, and joint working
Care and Wellbeing Portfolio Board – Mary McAllan – SG.
Improving population health.
Public Service Reform Directorate – Mary McAllan – SG.
Responsible for Covid Recovery Strategy development and implementation, alongside public service reform.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Learning and Evaluation Oversight Group – Mary McAllan SG. (Closed).
The overarching aim of the group is to bring together evidence to inform Scotland’s recovery from COVID-19. The group will run for two years and includes a mix of internal and external members.
Scottish Health and Industry Partnership Group (SHIP) – Mary McAllan SG. (Closed)
Strengthening Scotland’s innovation activities in health and social care to solve real problems and improve the quality, efficiency and sustainability of healthcare.
Ferry Scandal
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-02245/ Ferries
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/snp-accused-of-dodgy-deals-after-ps586m-value-of-lochaber-guarantee-revealed-3461772 Ferries
https://greens.scot/sites/default/files/FoI_17_02598%20-%20Main%20Response%20Letter%20-%20Amended.pdf Military
Ferguson Marine – The Ferry Scandal
https://www.gov.scot/publications/ferguson-marine-key-documents-2016/
https://www.gov.scot/publications/ferguson-marine-key-documents-2017/
https://www.gov.scot/publications/ferguson-marine-key-documents-2018/
https://www.gov.scot/publications/ferguson-marine-key-documents-2019/ Many docs. here.
Leaked dossier suggests Scottish ferry deal may have been rigged
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-62986757
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17832470.brief-history-ferguson-shipyard-controversy/
26 Dec 2023: Ferries ‘failure’ as compensation pay outs increase to more than £450,000
Under the operator’s passenger rights commitment, CalMac can reimburse food costs, provide overnight accommodation, cover mileage if passengers have to travel to arrive at another port or provide compensation for a delay or cancellation relating to a technical fault. Ferry compensation pay outs have increased almost eightfold in the past six years. Government-owned CalMac paid out £454,165 in 2022-23. The figure has increased from £57,822 – almost eight times less – since 2017-18.
Islands spokeswoman Rhoda Grant said: “Islanders are being failed by the SNP and taxpayers are footing the bill. “Years of failed planning and disastrous delays under the SNP has left us with a ferry fleet too old to function – and now islanders are stuck with chaos, cancellations and delays while taxpayers foot the bill. The SNP has no answers to the immediate crisis and no long-term plan to fix this shambles. We need urgent action to get services up and running again, and a national ferry building programme to support Scotland’s shipbuilding industry and deliver the ferries we need.”
The Lochaber Debacle – Correspondence regarding Mary McAllan the Director of Economic Development.
Information requested: Correspondence, including emails, letters, text messages, WhatsApp messages and internal memos sent or received or included via ‘cc’ing’ Mary McAllan, Director of Economic Development to or from Deloitte or employees of Deloitte and GFG Alliance or its subsidiaries.
Documents supplied
The value of Scottish taxpayers’ guarantee to metal magnate Gupta is £586 million
The F.T. reported the Scottish Government provided a guarantee of £586 million to Sanjeev Gupta’s company GFG Alliance as part of the company’s purchase of the Lochaber smelter.
The figure was made public for the first time after a two-year transparency battle.
The Scottish Government now estimates the net present value of the remaining guaranteed payments at £285.9m.
The revelation comes after ministers were slapped on the wrist for withholding the information from the public, with opposition leaders labelling it a “dodgy deal” and claiming the SNP was “desperate to avoid scrutiny”.
Concerns over the deal were raised after meetings between then-rural economy secretary Fergus Ewing and GFG Alliance figures came to light.
The agreement saw the Scottish Government guarantee 25 years of power purchases by Mr Gupta’s company from another business owned by his father, with the guarantee funding the purchase of the aluminium smelter.
The guarantee allowed Greensill Capital to transform the guarantee into nearly £300m of debt with a credit rating equivalent to UK sovereign bonds to be created, funding the purchase.
The deal with the Scottish Government was provided when the smelter in Lochaber was purchased by GFG Alliance alongside two hydropower plants from Rio Tinto in 2016.
GFG Alliance also promised the construction of an alloy wheels factory near the smelter, which was scrapped last year in favour of a £94m recycled aluminium factory, which could have created 2,000 jobs. Earlier this year the government admitted just 50 additional jobs had been created by the deal.
Gupta’s company hit financial difficulty earlier this year due to the collapse of Greensill Capital, which was partially blamed as Gupta’s company began to default on the more than $5bn (£3.7bn) of debt GFG Alliance had borrowed from Greensill.
The guarantee was reportedly provided, covering annual amounts between £14m and £32m, in return for a fee initially valued at £21.4m, but later written down to zero with a £33m provision due to the potential exposure of the deal.
GFG Alliance said: “The Lochaber aluminium smelter is a profitable operation, and GFG Alliance’s commitment to invest in a new recycling and aluminium billet plant there will secure the future of the operations, create new high-quality employment in the area and provide opportunities for the local supply chain.”
Ministers were also criticised by Scotland’s information watchdog for failing to release the total value of the deal after they claimed their commercial interests would be harmed by its release.
In a decision notice published in mid-October, Scottish Information Commissioner Daren Fitzhenry criticised the use of commercial interest as a defence, saying it was unlikely the release of the information would prejudice the negotiation of future guarantees. He said:
“The ministers do not, in general, operate in a commercial environment and the commissioner does not consider them to be doing so simply because they are providing funding to, or guaranteeing the liabilities of, business.
“They do not undertake such activities as participants in the market with the businesses concerned, in pursuit of profit, but rather to promote the economic and social well-being of the country, or parts of it, in furtherance of the wider public good.”
“Nothing in the submissions offered here persuades the commissioner that the ministers’ interests should be regarded as especially ‘commercial’ here.
“There might be prejudice to the public purse if the guarantee were to be called up, and disclosure might (although the commissioner considers this less likely) prejudice the negotiation of future guarantees, but neither of these considerations suggests an interest that should properly be considered commercial (as opposed to more widely economic, or social).”.
A summary of an August 2017 meeting between First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Ewing, and Mary McAllan, the government’s director of economic development, warned the government had “reached the very limits of what was possible”.
The briefing also noted “the potential to be overexposed to one company – a company that we know is on an aggressive expansion drive elsewhere”.
Lobbying records also show Mr Ewing and representatives from GFG Alliance discussed the possibility of upsizing the projected output of GFG’s never-to-be-built alloy wheel factory from two million wheels a year to three million at a dinner in March 2018.
Data Delivery Group (DDG) – Mary McAllan – Director of Business – SG. (Closed)
Oversee the development, evolution and delivery of a high-level delivery plan for our data vision for Scotland that reflects the work being taken forward by partners across the country.
Care and Wellbeing Portfolio Board-Mary McAllan – Covid Recovery Strategy – SG.
Provide oversight and strategic direction to the delivery of the Care and Wellbeing Portfolio. lead the initiation, mobilisation and delivery of the SG’s ambitious Portfolio of Health and Social Care reform.
Open Government Partnership Steering Group (OGPSG) – Mary McAllan SG.
The Partnership brings together governments and civil society organisations as partners at both the national and international levels. The steering group provides governance and a mechanism for ongoing dialogue and collaboration between civil society and government representatives.
European Structural and Investment Funds – Programme Monitoring Committee (PMC) -Mary McAllan – SG. (Closed)
Responsible for ensuring EU-funded activity contributed to equality and sustainability and recommended changes to Operational Programmes where required.
Ocean Energy Forum – Finance Committee – Mary McAllan – SG.
Responsible for The Crown Estate’s Ocean Energy portfolio, comprising all the wave and tidal developments in UK waters. Also leads the Energy and Infrastructure portfolio in Scotland.
The Scottish Enterprise Board – Mary McAllan – SG.
Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. It is tasked to deliver a significant, lasting effect on the Scottish economy, working with partners in the public and private sectors to find and exploit the best opportunities.
The quango increased spending on external business consultants by almost 1000 per cent to £1.7million of taxpayers’ money before running out of funds.
Scottish Enterprise (SE) hiked its outlay on international advisers Deloitte from £151,124 to £1,657,566 between 2018 and last year.
The bill emerged months before its chief executive Steve Dunlop was forced to admit the Scottish Government-funded organisation faced a humiliating financial crisis.
SE, which is supposed to help businesses manage their cashflows, said Deloitte was hired to provide advice on a range of services including “business modelling” and “due diligence reviews”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-54500354 A troubled leadership
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/scottish-enterprise-wrote-131-million-23990044 incompetent
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/scottish-enterprise-details-46-million-24876553 incompetent
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/scottish-enterprise-failed-distribute-nearly-23018513
https://www.scottish-enterprise.com/our-organisation/what-we-do
Scottish National Investment Bank
The Bank has so far made just a 2% return on the £460 million of taxpayers’ money that it has invested. Given that commercial banks are currently offering savings rates of 5% or more, this means the SNIB would have achieved stronger returns by simply leaving the cash in a bank account.
The Bank has been on a public relations blitz in a bid to repair its image in light of all these failures – a blitz that taxpayers are also paying for. Taxpayers are set to pick up a bill of £360,000 as the Bank seeks to hire a public relations firm “to build the reputation of the Bank” after a year of scrutiny. Whether these efforts will prove to be successful as we head into the New Year is, of course, another question…Another no-mates Sturgeon brainwave and another an abject failure. Needs to be a public enquiry to find out where the money went. (Harry Clynch)
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has criticised the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and other Scottish development agencies for “holding back the Scottish economy.”
In a speech in Edinburgh, Brown noted that the multitude of regional development agencies that now operate in Scotland, as well financial institutions such as Scottish Enterprise and the SNIB, are replicating structures that already exist at a UK level. The lack of cooperation between Edinburgh and London could be costing the country up to £4 billion, he claimed.
“It’s no wonder that businesses are confused – if you look at what needs to be done, we need coordination and cooperation, we need it at the regional as well as the national level,” Brown added.
The network of different agencies which all have similar aims “is holding back the Scottish economy, because we don’t have people sitting around the table looking at these same issues in a way that uses funds to best effect.”
Brown’s intervention comes at a time when the SNIB is coming under increased scrutiny in Holyrood over its handling of conflicts of interest and its lack of a legally mandated advisory board. (Harry Clynch)
https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2023/12/29/snib-a-year-in-review/ An expose of incompetence and avarice
https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2023/12/07/gordon-brown-slams-scotlands-confused-development-agencies/ An expose of incompetence and avarice
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