Interim members appointed to WICS’ board

The Scottish Government has appointed two interim members to the WICS board, who between them have extensive expertise in corporate governance, accounting, audit and finance. The appointments became effective from 15 July for up to a year.

Ronnie Hinds is former chief executive of Fife Council, and has held a number of public positions since his retirement in 2013, including chair of Boundaries Scotland and lead non-executive director with the Scottish Government. He was deputy chair of the Accounts Commission for four years from October 2014 and served as acting chair for two years until standing down in June 2019. He was also controller of audit from 2000 until 2002.

Morag Sheppard has extensive experience of corporate governance at senior management and board level, in the public and private sectors. Until 2022, she was a member of the board of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and latterly, chair of its Audit and Risk Committee. She previously held a series of senior organisational governance roles in the financial sector.

The interim directors report to the WICS chair and are filling existing board vacancies. A spokesperson for WICS said: “The new members of the board bring with them a wealth of experience and we look forward to working with them.”

WICS is under scrutiny from the Scottish Government’s Public Audit Committee on a number of financial and governance matters arising following the Auditor General for Scotland’s report on the regulator’s annual report and accounts for 2022-23.