Commission on Scottish Devolution

An independent review of the experience of devolution in Scotland

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Commission members

Note: Although some Commission members are described in terms of offices they hold with named organisations, they serve on the Commission in a personal capacity and not on behalf of those organisations.

Chairman:

Sir Kenneth Calman

Chancellor of the University of Glasgow

Members:

Colin Boyd

Former Lord Advocate, member of the House of Lords (Labour)

Rani Dhir MBE

Executive Director, Drumchapel Housing Co-operative

Professor Sir David Edward

Retired Judge of the European Court

Murray Elder

Member of the House of Lords (Labour)

Audrey Findlay

Former Leader of Aberdeenshire Council, Convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrat Party

Jamie Lindsay

Former Scottish Office Minister, member of the House of Lords (Conservative), Chairman of the Scottish Agricultural College

John Loughton

Chairman of the Scottish Youth Parliament

Murdoch MacLennan

Chief Executive, Telegraph Media Group

Shonaig Macpherson

Chair of the National Trust for Scotland and of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry

Iain McMillan

Director, CBI Scotland

James Selkirk

Former Scottish Office Minister, member of the House of Lords (Conservative)

Mona Siddiqui

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Glasgow

Matt Smith

Scottish Secretary, UNISON

Jim Wallace

Former Deputy First Minister, member of the House of Lords (Liberal Democrat)

Matt Smith

Matt Smith

Matt Smith is the Scottish Secretary of UNISON. He was appointed to this post in 1993 and prior to this appointment headed NALGO in Scotland. He is a member of UNISON’s UK Senior Management Group.

He is Treasurer and a member of the STUC’s General Council and served as STUC President in 1999/2000. In 2004 he was awarded the OBE in recognition of his contribution to trade unionism.

Matt is a member of the Employment Appeals Tribunal; a lay member of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh); and an Executive Member and Honorary Fellow of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry. He sits as a Justice of the Peace in North Ayrshire and was recently appointed to the Justices of the Peace Advisory Committee for North Strathclyde. Until recently he was a member of the Ayrshire Economic Forum.

Over the years Matt has served on a number of organisations. He was a member and Vice Chair of the Broadcasting Council for Scotland. He served two terms on the Committee on Church and Nation of the Church of Scotland, and currently serves on the Scottish Churches Industrial Mission. He served on the Boards of both the Scottish Local Government Information Unit and the Centre for Scottish Public Policy. He was a member of the Scottish Advisory Committee of the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Matt was very much involved in the campaign to establish a Scottish Parliament, serving on a range of bodies in that connection. As a member of the (McIntosh) Commission on Local Government and a Scottish Parliament, he was keen to promote the wider agenda on the impact of devolution.

He served as an elected Councillor and Dean of Guild in the former Stevenston Town Council and was a Parliamentary Candidate in 1979.