Management Group of the Scottish Executive

The Management Group (MG) of the Scottish Executive is chaired by the Permanent Secretary and meets each week.

As set out in the Executive's Freedom of Information Publication Scheme agendas and summary minutes of Management Group meetings from January 2005 are now being published. These will be made available within three months of each scheduled meeting.

• John Elvidge, Permanent Secretary
• Paul Pagliari, Director of Change and Corporate Services

CCS As the new Director of Change and Corporate Services within the Scottish Executive, Paul is responsible for delivering services such as, HR, IT and accommodation to a large majority of people who work for the Scottish Executive. Paul was previously the Senior HR Director in the Immigration and Nationaltiy Directorate in the Home Office. Prior to this Paul was the HR director at Scottish Water. He is a member of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, sitting in Edinburgh, and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Paul is recognised as a regular contributor to the HR journals and as a speaker at conferences. He has operated at Director level in the public and private sectors and was one of the first ever non executive Directors appointed to the Scottish Executive. He has devoted his professional career to reform within HR and towards recognition that effective HR is integral to organisational success.

• Mike Ewart, Head of Education

Born in 1952 at Anthorn, near Carlisle, he attended several schools while his father was in the Royal Navy. He studied for a 1st Class Honours degree in English at Jesus College, Cambridge, between 1971 and 1974 and then took a second degree (American Literature D Phil) at York University.

He joined the Scottish Office in 1977 as a fast stream entrant. He began his career in education then worked on criminal justice policy and roads and transport before becoming Assistant Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Scotland, George Younger, from May 1981 to October 1982. During the following 12 months he held the Civil Service Fellowship in Politics at Glasgow University.

His next assignment was to the Health Department before returning to Education in 1987. Between 1991 and 1999 Mr Ewart worked in Scottish Courts Administration. When the Scottish Court Service secured Agency status in 1994 he took up the first Chief Executive post in the new body. In 1999 he returned to a post as head of Group in the Education Department.

He was promoted to his current post in March 2002. His interests include books, music, military history, running, climbing (ice and rock), and ski-ing. He has two children.

• Philip Rycroft, Head of Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department (ETLLD)
• Dr Andrew Goudie, Head of Finance and Central Services Department

Dr Goudie completed BA, MA and PhD degrees at Cambridge University. Before joining the Scottish Office in 1990, he was Director of Cambridge Econometrics Ltd, worked at the World Bank in Washington as an economist.

In 1995 he worked as a Principal Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. In 1996 he became the Chief Economist for the Overseas Development Administration/Department for International Development.

Since 1999 he has been Chief Economic Adviser at the Scottish Executive.

• Robert Gordon CB, Head of Justice Department and Legal and Parliamentary Services

Robert Gordon was educated at the Gordon Schools in Huntly and at Aberdeen University where he read Italian. He joined The Scottish Office in 1973. Early in his career he had a number of administrative postings in the Education, Industry and Development Departments.

He was Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland (George Younger and Malcolm Rifkind) in the mid-eighties. He then worked in the Agriculture Department and various central management and change and service delivery posts until May 1997 when he took charge of the Constitution Group responsible for giving effect to the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament.

He was promoted in December 1998 to the then new post of Head of the Executive Secretariat. He then became head of FCSD before being appointed Chief Executive of the Crown Office and Head of Legal and Parliamentary Services in March 2002. He was appointed Head of the Justice Department in December 2004 and continues in his role as Head of Legal and Parliamentary Services. He is married with four children and lives in Edinburgh.

• Nicola Munro, Head of Development Department

Nicola Munro was born in Hertfordshire on January 11, 1948. She attended Harrogate Grammar School and graduated in history from Warwick University following study in the United States and in Italy.

She joined the Scottish Office in 1970, taking on posts in health, education, arts, criminal justice and personnel policy. Promoted to the Senior Civil Service in 1986, she held senior posts dealing with food safety, hospital services and medical education; local economic development and urban regeneration; the school curriculum; public health policy; and the environment.

She was appointed head of the Development Department in July 2001 following an open competition. She is married with two children.

• Norman McFadyen, Crown Agent and Chief Executive of Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service

Educated at Glasgow University, Norman McFadyen joined the Crown Office as a Legal Apprentice in 1976 and served in the Procurator Fiscal's Office in Airdrie and Glasgow before returning to Crown Office in 1986.

He was appointed Deputy Crown Agent in 1994 and Regional Procurator Fiscal for Lothian and Borders in 1999. He was involved in the Lockerbie criminal investigation and prosecution from December 1988 onwards and headed the Crown Office trial team at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

Norman was appointed as Crown Agent (Designate) in March 2002, as part of the restructuring of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and was confirmed in the post of Crown Agent in March 2003. On the 6th of December 2004 he was appointed as Crown Agent and Chief Executive.

• Alyson Stafford, Finance Director

Alyson Stafford was appointed as the Director of Finance for the Scottish Executive in June 2005 and is a member of the Management Group.

She was educated at Oxford University, receiving a BA and MA in Geography. She also holds two CCAB professional finance qualifications.

She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1992 and her services to the public sector were recognised in 2002 when she received honorary membership of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants (nominated by CIPFA Scotland).

With a proven track record in the private and public sector, Alyson's career has been at the forefront of change leading strategic, operational and corporate services in the Health Service in England and Scotland as a Chief Executive as well as Director of Finance.

This is her first position in central government

• Richard Wakeford, Head of Environment and Rural Affairs Department

Richard Wakeford joined the Scottish Executive at the start of 2005 from the Countryside Agency in England where he had been Chief Executive since its creation in 1999.

Richard was also an appointed member of the UK Sustainable Development Commission and a non-executive member of the management board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). He remains an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Before joining the Countryside Commission as Chief Executive in 1996, Richard worked in the Cabinet Office working on Cabinet minutes, economic and environmental affairs. His previous experience was mainly in the Department of the Environment working on land use, environment and water policy issues.

In 1990 he wrote a book on development control in the USA, following a year spent at Princeton University. He has also advised the Hungarian government on land use and sustainable development, under the auspices of the Know How Fund.

• Dr Kevin Woods, Head of Health Department

Head of Health DepartmentDr Kevin Woods is head of the Scottish Executive's Health Department and Chief Executive of NHSScotland.

Previously he was Chief Executive of North Central London Strategic Health Authority. He was also the William R. Lindsay Professor of Health Policy and Economic Evaluation at the University of Glasgow. He has held a number of general management positions in the English NHS, including that of Regional General Manager of the Trent Regional Health Authority. Before joining the NHS he was a lecturer at the University of Manchester, and the Flinders University of South Australia.

Non Executive Members

MG has three non-executive members, each appointed for a term of two years attending at least one meeting per month. Non-executive members bring independent, challenging and informed input from an external perspective to the work of MG and in particular to the consideration of corporate management issues such as the Human Resource strategy, administration costs, monitoring of programme expenditure, training and development, relations with stakeholders - and help to drive a process of culture change and continuous improvement.

• Shonaig Macpherson
• Professor Bill Bound
• David Fisher