What was your highlight of 2025?
Professionally, the absolute highlight of the year for me was joining the Scotland Office. It’s such a privilege to lead such a unique organisation. It is a small but really important department, playing a key role in ensuring the UK government delivers for people in Scotland. But if I can have two professional highlights, it was also becoming head of place (jointly with Craig Ogilvie, director of Making Tax Digital in HMRC) for the UK government in Scotland. It is great to be working across departments on enabling our presence and impact in Scotland within the Places for Growth programme – through civil servants being located, and building great careers, here.
My personal highlight was a family sailing holiday around the Hebrides. It made me feel really connected to some of the most stunning and historical parts of Scotland, and highlighted the real diversity of landscapes we enjoy across the UK. Even better, we were blessed by the weather, and we saw dolphins, a basking shark and we think a minke whale.
What was the hardest part of being a leader in 2025?
For me, there were two big challenges.
Firstly, making sure that we prioritise effectively. We never have the resources we would like. And working in a busy government environment means that things are not always predictable. So it’s really important to focus on what really, really matters the most and where you have the scope to have the most impact (while avoiding feeling guilty for not doing more).
And secondly, it’s about people. Thinking about what makes people tick and bringing them with you. At the Scotland Office we are a small team, but an incredibly busy one. People work really hard and I strongly feel my responsibility to ensure that effort is recognised, and that people are properly supported with the information and skills they need to do their jobs brilliantly.
Sometimes that means you have to roll your sleeves up and get on with it, turning your hand to whatever needs doing. In a small department you have to provide strong and visible leadership, be the key advisor to the secretary of state, have strong links with other departments and No.10 – but also to be able to pivot and just do whatever is needed at that moment.
What are the main challenges facing your department in the coming year?
I want to make sure that at the Scotland Office we really make an impact and change things for the better.
My priorities are delivering for my ministers, helping the UK government as a whole deliver for people in Scotland, and ensuring that my team has the skills and resources it needs to deliver. We’ve started a transformation programme which offers great opportunities. But making that change while delivering a full work programme – with the additional context of Scottish Parliamentary elections in May 2026 – will mean lots of juggling, and being nimble enough to pivot to the right issues at the right time.
I expect we will be incredibly busy in the New Year, before the pre-election period kicks in. And of course pre-election guidance for Scottish Parliament elections is in many ways more complex and less straightforward than the General Election guidance we are all familiar with.
I want to make sure that my team thrives throughout, focusing both on excellent delivery alongside organisational and personal wellbeing, so that we show up as the best version of our department and of ourselves.
Which celebrity or historical figure would you choose to turn on the Christmas lights in your town?
I live in a very rural area in the North West of Scotland, so not really in a town. But the person I would like to see switch on Christmas lights would be 19th century Scottish civil engineer Alan Stevenson. Uncle of the famous Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, Alan designed and built 13 lighthouses on some of the most inhospitable and dangerous parts of the Scottish coastline and its remote islands. All without the benefit of modern engineering technology and equipment. He made a huge difference to the safety and economy of those communities, and many of his lighthouses still stand to this day as iconic landmarks. That they do is a testament to his skills, innovation and vision – and very relevant for our mission today.
Read all the entries to this year's perm secs round up here