Senior Management Team Meeting - Minutes - 28 January 2026
Attendees
- Alison Irivine (AI) TS CEO - Chair
- Catherine Jess – Gibson (CJG), Interim Director of FCS
- Bettina Sizeland (BS), Director of TIC
- Fiona Brown (FB), Director of SPA
- Hilary Cameron (HC), Head of Rail Business Management Team
- Chris Wilcock (CW), Director of Ferries and Ports
- Susan Cameron (SC), Head of Operations - ECS
- Hugh Gillies (HG), Director of Road Delivery Operations
- Mary Docherty (MD), Director of BCAT
- Lawrence Shackman (LS), Director of Infrastructure Projects
- David Swanson (DS), Corporate Governance Manager
- Gillian Steele (GS), Head of Finance
- Joanne Demarco (JD) Head of Human Resources
- Andy Pope (AP), Head of Corporate Governance
- Steven Wyllie (SW), Corporate Governance Manager
CEO Office
- Mark Dunlop (MDu)
- Pam Yorke (PY)
Apologies
- Morna Cannon, Director of ECS
- Graeme Cook, Director of Rail Delivery
Welcome
AI welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Finance
GS provided an update on the financial position as of 31 December 2025. GS discussed the Resource and Capital forecasts and advised that FBP are working with Directorates to identify any spend options that could be brought forward to alleviate pressures on the 2026–27 budgets.
Corporate Dashboard
SW advised that performance on Official Responses had remained consistent and that Ministerial Responses had improved. It was noted that there had been an increase in FOIs over 2025, and that FoI requests were becoming more complex.
SW provided business travel cost data for April–December 2025 and advised that these had not yet been split across the new Directorates but would be in the next report. SMT requested that, in the next report, the costs be broken down to show how much of these costs related specifically for training and development days.
Risk Register Review
AS provided a short presentation on the results of the risk survey circulated to SMT for completion. A discussion followed on the frequency of risk discussions between Directors and their risk leads, as well as within Directorate management teams.
Prioritisation was highlighted in the survey as an area of risk that SMT felt was not discussed enough. It was noted that this could be linked to skills and resource pressures, and SMT discussed whether prioritisation should be a regular agenda item to be considered alongside resourcing/exceptions discussions.
AP provided a schedule of deep dives for the year and asked SMT to advise if anything further should be added.
Internal Audit Draft Plan for 2026–27
LC presented the paper detailing the four proposed assurance reviews for Transport Scotland following discussions. She asked SMT if they were content with the proposals.
SMT were content with the four proposed reviews. The next step will be for the draft formal plan to be submitted to the Audit Committee.
AOB
FB informed SMT about a trawl she had received on Open Government relating to steps to be taken to improve transparency relating to TS statistics and decision-making. SMT agreed that it would be useful for a proposition to be prepared on this, FB confirmed she would proceed with the Expression of Interest.