As Chief Executive of Social Security Scotland, I have the privilege of leading Social Security Scotland and have done since it launched in September 2018. There are two main parts to my role:

• working with Social Security Directorate and Programme colleagues to make sure that Social Security Scotland is ready to take on the delivery. This includes making sure that we have the people in place trained and ready to deliver; we have appropriate space for these people to operate from; and that we are comfortable that the Chief Digital Officer and the Programme have given us what we need to deliver; and
• leading the day to day administration of our ‘live’ benefits and ensuring its delivering as it should for the people of Scotland.

Whilst we continue to be ambitious in terms of the timelines we would hope to deliver against, one of my priorities is to make sure we move at pace whilst remaining focussed on things like our client service levels and inclusive communications and that we truly have a service that delivery with fairness, dignity and respect. I remain very conscious that if we don’t do that, then all the great stakeholder, policy and design work will be lost.

Prior to my role as Chief Executive of Social Security Scotland, I held service delivery leadership roles as Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland, Chief Executive of Student Awards Agency Scotland and Deputy Chief Executive of Accountant in Bankruptcy. These roles follow a long career in the Scottish Government in various policy posts, including a delivery role with the then Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.