News / SIC convener joins trust selection panel
SHETLAND Islands Council convener Malcolm Bell was appointed to the selection panel to choose eight independent trustees for the new look Shetland Charitable Trust.
The move follows the trust’s acceptance of reform proposals demanded by Scottish charity regulator OSCR to remove SIC dominance of the trust.
At a short meeting in Lerwick Hotel, trust chairman Drew Ratter withdrew, having been proposed by vice chairman Jonathan Wills, when trustee councillor Alastair Cooper suggested he was too close to the Viking Energy wind farm development.
Cooper proposed Bell, who has taken no sides in the fractious debate on the controversial wind farm issue, which has caused so much hand wringing at the trust over the past few years.
“I have no doubt that Drew would do a straight and honest job, but the perception in the community would always be that he would favour pro-Viking folk, and I think quite honestly Shetland Charitable Trust and Viking Energy doesn’t need that,” the Shetland North councillor/trustee said.
The panel will be chaired by Dr Karen Carlton, one of the most experienced individuals in the field of public appointments.
As Scotland’s first Commissioner for Public Appointments, a position she held until May this year, Carlton wrote the code of practice for ministers appointing people to pubic bodies.
She scrutinised ministers’ appointment practices to make sure they were open, fair and based on merit and wrote their first equality and diversity strategy.
Carlton is also a chartered fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development, a trustee of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, where she chairs the nominations and remuneration committee, and a member of for BBC Scotland’s appointments panel.
The third member of the panel will be independent SCT trustee Valerie Nicolson, the head of Anderson High School.
The trust will start advertising this week for independent trustees to come forward, with a closing date for applications on 9 November.
Interviews will take place in late November before names are submitted to the trust for approval on 13 December, ready to take up their posts by the end of March next year.
After Monday’s meeting Bell said he was very keen to see the reform process maintain its momentum.
“It’s very, very important that we get good quality people to apply for this very important post and I would encourage anyone with the interests of Shetland at heart to apply,” he said.
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