Scottish City Region and Growth Deal Delivery Board minutes: March 2026

Attendees and apologies

Board Members

• Anne-Marie Martin (AMM) Deputy Director, Regional Economic Development, Scottish Government
• Anna MacMillan (AM) Deputy Director, Policy, Scotland Office
• Alessandro Fusco (AF) Head of Scotland Team, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
• Paula Williamson (PW) Territorial Office Spending Principal, HM Treasury
• Miriam Simpson (MS) Head of Local Growth and City Deals, Scotland Office (job-share)
• Beth Hall (BH) Head of Local Growth and City Deals, Scotland Office (job-share)
• Kate Bryson (KB) Head of East & West of Scotland Growth Deals, Scottish Government
• Kimberley Daly (KD) Head of Highlands, Islands, Edinburgh and South Growth Deals, Scottish Government

SO Officials

• Brennan Leslie (BL) Policy Advisor
• Nathan Lappin (NL) Team Leader
• Laura Barker (LB) Policy Advisor
• Craig Birrel (CB) Policy Advisor
• Anna Fletcher (AF) Policy Advisor

SG Officials

• Andrew Morris (AMo) Investment Governance Portfolio Team Leader
• Fiona Loynd (FL) Regional Economic Development Team Leader
• Kenneth Robertson (KR) Regional Economic Development Team Leader
• Jennifer Treasure (JT) Regional Economic Development Team Leader
• Anne Ashton (AA) Regional Economic Development Team Leader
• Allison Rice (AR) Regional Economic Development Team Leader
• Catherine MacLennan (CM) Finance Officer

Secretariat

• Ian Scott (IS) Economic Policy Officer     

All attendees attended virtually.

Items and actions

1.    Welcome, introductions and apologies

AMM opened the meeting. At short notice, the decision had been made to for the Board to meet virtually due to transport disruption following the fire near Glasgow Central Station. 

AMM Introduced and welcomed Paula Williamson (PW) and Lydia Isard as the new HMT representatives for the Deal programme, noting that only PW was online. PW explained that Lydia and herself had replaced Sarah White and Eve Wilde as HMT’s representatives on the Deals.

AMM explained her and AM’s role as co-chairs and introduced MHCLG, specifically AF.

AMM also introduced Catherine MacLennan (CM) as new member of The Scottish Government’s Deals finance team.

2.    Minutes of the Previous Meeting

Minutes from the 03 December Board, paper 2, had been approved by correspondence and uploaded on Gov.scot. No issues were flagged with the minutes as written.

3.    Finance Business Partner Update

An update on finance was discussed, focusing on the difficulties of managing underspend across the programme.

4.    Deals Performance Dashboard

The following Deals were selected for in-depth discussion: Islands Growth Deal, Ayrshire Growth Deal, Aberdeen City Region Deal, and Stirling & Clackmannanshire City Region Deal. This included discussions on progress made to date, opportunities and challenges.

5.    Continuous Improvement

Progress of Continuous Improvement workstreams was discussed in detail. The draft paper covering the Major Change workstream was discussed with the expectation that this would go before the Board at their next quarterly meeting. The overall approach to Risk Management across the Deals programme was also discussed. Again, a paper on this was targeted for submission to the Board at their next quarterly meeting.

6.    Risk Review 

The current position on the Deal relating to risk was discussed.

7.    Action Tracker

Outstanding actions were discussed and emerging actions highlighted for the next Board.

8.    Horizon Scanning

The potential impact of the forthcoming Scottish election was flagged. Also flagged were the forthcoming next stages of the Local Growth Fund.

9.    AOB

Anne-Marie Martin noted that this was Anna MacMillan’s last Board, as she would be moving roles soon. The forthcoming publication of updated Carbon Guidance was flagged for awareness.

10.    Close and next meeting

The next Board was provisionally set for 27 May. However, this may need reorganised considering AMM and KD not being available on this date, the impact of AM’s leaving, and the post election period. AMo explained that the provisional dates were set to align with finance reporting calendar. Scotland Office colleagues to consider resetting date.