Professor David Heald

Contributions to Policy

 

Professor David Heald 

 

    2024

  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 23 August 2024 to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee of the Scottish Parliament for its inquiry on the Financial Sustainability of Scotland's Local Authorities. He then gave oral evidence to the Committee on 1 October 2024, the transcript being here and the video here. At the end of this inquiry, the Committee wrote on 5 November 2024 to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance setting out its position on the forthcoming 2025-26 Scottish Budget. This letter extensively cited David Heald's written and oral evidence.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 12 August 2024 to the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament for its inquiry on Managing Scotland’s Public Finances: A Strategic Approach. He then gave oral evidence to the Committee on 10 September 2024, the transcript being here and the video here. His oral evidence was reported in the Scottish edition of The Times newspaper. The Committee reported on 7 November 2024, extensively citing David Heald's written and oral evidence.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence to the Public Accounts Committee's inquiry into Whole of Government Accounts 2021-22 ahead of the annual oral evidence session held by the Committee with HM Treasury on 15 May 2024. The video recording is available here and the transcript of proceedings here. David Heald's written evidence pointed to the fact that a substantial number of Scottish local authorities and central government entities had not submitted WGA returns to OSCAR-2 even though they had published audited accounts by the Treasury deadline. This was taken up at Question 19. Also, he emphasised that there had been too much attention on WGA delays, largely outside the direct control of the Treasury, and not enough attention on what could be learned about the sustainability of UK public finances from the series of published WGAs. This was taken up at Question 39. Because of the dissolution of Parliament for the 4 July 2024 UK general election, there will not be a PAC report after this hearing but the Chair of the PAC has written to the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury setting out the Committee's continued concerns about delays and incompleteness.
  • David Heald made a presentation on 'The Local Audit Crisis in England' at the webinar on 'Stabilising Local Government Finances: Securing a Viable Long-Term Funding Model', organised by Public Policy Exchange on 23 April 2024.
  • David Heald participated on 25 March 2024 in the 'Constitutional Policy Lab' on 'Exploring Scottish Government-Local Government Relations' held by the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow. This considered the deterioration in central-local arrangements and discussed options for reform.
  • David Heald participated in a round table at the "It's a Numbers Game" research workshop to mark the book launch of The Resilience of New Public Management (Oxford University Press, 2024), held during an in-person day event at the University of Edinburgh Business School on 13 March 2024.
  • Together with Lynn Bradley (Glasgow) and Ron Hodges (Birmingham), David Heald submitted written responses in March 2024 to three separate consultations on the local audit crisis in England. They had previously published an article on the causes, consequences and possible remedies in the refereed journal Public Money & Management. Their response to the consultation by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities appears here; their response to the National Audit Office consultation appears here; and their response to the CIPFA-LASAAC consultation on temporary relaxations to the Local Authority Accounting Code in 2024-25 and 2025-26, affecting only England, appears here.
  • David Heald took part in a Royal Society of Edinburgh fringe meeting held at the Scottish Labour Party Conference on 16 February 2024 on the topic of devolved taxation. The RSE holds fringe meetings every year at each of the main Scottish political party conferences. The speakers at this event were David, Caroline Gardner (former Auditor General for Scotland) and Michael Marra MSP (Labour finance spokesperson), with Michael Keating (General Secretary of the RSE) in the chair. David concentrated on Scottish Income Tax and Council Tax, making reference to an RSE Advice Paper on Council Tax and the Celtic Academies Alliance report on 'Unlocking fiscal autonomy: The evolution of devolved taxation'.
  • The 2023 local audit crisis article in Public Money & Management, co-authored by Lynn Bradley, David Heald and Ron Hodges, was cited on page 18 of a House of Commons Library research paper on local audit and accountability in England published on 16 January 2024.

    2023

  • David Heald submitted on 27 October 2023 a memorandum to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons in response to its call for external evidence ahead of its annual meeting on the UK Whole of Government Accounts with HM Treasury on 9 November 2023. This meeting related to the WGA 2020-21 which was published on 31 July 2023, 27 months after the reporting date. David Heald's submission sets out the reasons why this delay has occurred and shows that WGA contains valuable information about UK public finances beyond that available from the national accounts. The transcript of the PAC meeting is available here and the video here. The Public Accounts Committee reported on 26 January 2024, citing David Heald's written evidence.
  • David Heald chaired an ad hoc working group of the Royal Society of Edinburgh which submitted evidence to the consultation on Council Tax set up by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The working group also prepared an Advice Paper, published on 23 October 2023 which contained not only the response to the consultation but also a broader discussion of why the Scottish local government finance system is neither fair nor efficient. On 21 January 2024, the Scotsman cited the Advice Paper and quoted David Heald on the need for the Government and Parliament to address Council Tax reform.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on the fiscal sustainability of Scottish public finances to the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament and gave oral evidence on 19 September 2023, the transcript being here and the video here. The Committee reported on 6 November 2023, extensively quoting David Heald's evidence.
  • David Heald submitted a response on 18 May 2023 to the HM Treasury consultation on its proposals to modify asset valuation principles for non-investment assets. He disputed the assertion that the problem was the complexity of current values, arguing that the audit crisis is concentrated in English local government.
  • David Heald presented on 'Scotland's devolved taxation' at the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Devolved Tax Policy Round Table on 17 May 2023 in collaboration with the other Celtic Academies. The views expressed are those of David Heald and not of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The presentation is available here.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence in April 2023 to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee of the House of Commons for its inquiry into Financial Reporting and Auditing in Local Authorities. This inquiry aims to resolve the local audit crisis in England. On 15 May 2023, he gave oral evidence to the Committee, the transcript being here and the video here (his contribution starts at 17:21). The Committee published its report on 24 November, extensively quoting David Heald’s evidence.
  • David Heald gave a presentation on 9 March 2023 at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Working Party on Financial Management and Reporting, a constituent part of the OECD s Network of Senior Budget Officials. His topic was Why the contingent liabilities of governments need to be better reported and monitored , the presentation being available here.
  • As a member of HM Treasury s User-Preparer Advisory Group on Government Financial Reporting, David Heald gave a presentation to UPAG on 8 March 2023. His topic was The usefulness of the UK Whole of Government Account , the presentation being available here.

    2022

  • David Heald responded on 31 October 2022 to the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s call for responses to its consultation document on how it would conduct its fiscal sustainability analysis.
  • David Heald submitted a response on 26 September 2022 to the HM Treasury-Scottish Government consultation about the Independent Report on Block Grant Adjustments they had commissioned as background to the revision of the Scottish Fiscal Framework then being negotiated between the two Governments. The Independent Report and the revised Scottish Fiscal Framework were published on 2 August 2023.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 20 August 2022 to the Finance and Public Administration Committee for its inquiry in advance of the Scottish Budget 2023-24. The Committee reported on 3 November 2022, citing David Heald’s evidence at paragraph 62:
    ‘Professor David Heald of the Adam Smith Business School observed that “tackling endemic problems of inequality and poverty should be addressed not by higher benefits than the rest of the UK but by enhanced economic performance.” At Conveners Group on 28 September 2022, this quote was drawn to the First Minister's attention when she was asked about the impact of the Scottish Government’s plans to reduce the employability budget. Responding, the First Minister reiterated that “employability is important—we still invest a lot in employability… , but we made a careful judgement that we are probably as close to full employment as we will get right now”. She argued that, with labour shortages in many areas of the economy, funds need to be focused on pay deals to attract people into those areas.’
    This is extracted from an exchange between the Convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee and the First Minister at the Conveners Group meeting on 28 September 2022. The full exchange is at columns 15-16 of the Official Report.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 21 January 2022 in response to the Finance and Public Administration Committee's inquiry into the Scottish Government's plans for a Resource Spending Review covering the life of the 2021 Scottish Parliament. He then gave oral evidence on 8 March 2022, the transcript being here and the video here. His evidence was extensively quoted in the Committee's Report.
  • David Heald submitted a response on 27 March 2022 to the Scottish Government to its consultation on the planned Resource Spending Review Framework.

    2021

  • David Heald was a member of a short-life Royal Society of Edinburgh committee, chaired by Jeremy Peat, which submitted written evidence to the Scottish Government's consultation on the forthcoming Scottish Budget 2022-23. The evidence was published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 26 October 2021 as Advice Paper 21-13.
  • David Heald was a member of a short-life Royal Society of Edinburgh committee, chaired by Iain McLean, which prepared written evidence for the House of Lords Constitution Committee's inquiry into the 'Future Governance of the UK'. The evidence was published by the Constitution Committee here and was also been published in May 2021 by the Royal Society of Edinburgh as Advice Paper 21-05.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 29 January 2021 to the Northern Ireland Assembly Audit Committee in relation to its inquiry on the future governance of the Northern Ireland Audit Office. Subsequently, he gave oral evidence on 10 March 2021, with both transcript and video being available (David Heald's session was from 4 minutes to 32 minutes in the recording). The Committee reported to the Assembly on 26 January 2022, citing David Heald's evidence and re-publishing it as an annex to its report. The Committee's recommendations were approved by the Assembly on 14 February 2022, after which the report was put in the public domain. As proposed by David Heald, the Committee recommended that the next Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland should be appointed on a non-renewable ten-year contract. This departure from the now customary eight years elsewhere in the UK is justified by the special circumstances of Northern Ireland where its geography and public sector structure means that subsequent roles would be very constrained.

    2020

  • David Heald chaired a short-life committee of the Royal Society of Edinburgh to respond to the Scottish Government's public consultation on the Scottish Budget 2021-22. This was published on 15 October 2020 as Advice Paper AP20-17.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 29 May 2020 to the Finance and Constitution Committee of the Scottish Parliament, in response to its call for evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on Scotland’s Fiscal Framework agreement with the UK Government.
  • David Heald participated on 23 January 2020 in the inaugural meeting of the Treasury s User-Preparer Advisory Group on government financial reporting. David Heald accepted HM Treasury s invitation to become a founder member of this Group, which brings together internal and external stakeholders. The establishment of this Group followed the report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the democratic uses of government accounts and the subsequent Government Financial Reporting Review conducted by HM Treasury, both of which drew on David Heald s evidence. At that inaugural meeting, he secured agreement that Minutes and Papers will go into the public domain after approval at the subsequent meeting.

    2019

  • David Heald made a presentation on strategy and governance on 11 December 2019 to the Board of Revenue Scotland, which is the Non-Ministerial Department responsible for Scotland s devolved taxes.
  • David Heald contributed his views on the renegotiation of Scotland s Fiscal Framework to a stakeholder Round Table held on 10 October 2019 by the Joint Scottish Government-Scottish Parliament Fiscal Framework Working Group.
  • David Heald contributed on the role of public sector accounting reform to the workshop on Fiscal constitutions and public spending in international perspective held at Nuffield College, Oxford on 3-5 October 2019, under the auspices of the Treasury-commissioned and Nuffield Foundation-funded project on the History of UK spending control .
  • David Heald participated on 17 September 2019 in the First IPSASB Research Forum, organised by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board and hosted at the Villa Doria D’Angri, Parthenope University of Naples.
  • David Heald contributed on 25 June 2019 to HM Treasury s Round Table on its new approach to performance budgeting within its public spending planning system.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence in June 2019 on the Barnett formula to the UK Public Accounts Committee's inquiry on 'Funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This evidence was extensively cited in the Committee's report.
  • David Heald acted as reviewer for the National Infrastructure Commission s research project on the VFM assessment work on historic conventionally-financed and Public-Private Partnerships in the roads sector, and on its analytical framework for future comparisons between publicly and privately funded infrastructure.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 25 January 2019 as Response to the Procedure Committee s follow-up questions in relation to its Budget Committee inquiry. His contributions are extensively referenced in the Procedure Committee s 9 July 2019 Report on 'Should there be a Budget Committee?'

    2018

  • David Heald gave Oral evidence on 12 December 2018 to the House of Commons Procedure Committee s Inquiry into the case for a Budget Committee.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 2 November 2018, titled The Case for a Spending and Tax Committee , to the House of Commons Procedure Committee s Inquiry into the case for a Budget Committee.
  • David Heald met on 14 September 2018 at the South Korean Embassy in London with an official delegation from its Ministry of Economy and Finance to discuss the relevance to South Korea of UK experience of Spending Reviews.
  • David Heald (together with Adam Smith Business School colleague Iain Wright) submitted on 31 August 2018 a memorandum, The Impact of UK Common Frameworks on the Devolution Settlement, to the Finance and Constitution Committee of the Scottish Parliament
  • David Heald contributed to the Round Table on Rethinking public financial management and development , held on Wednesday 23 May 2018 at the Overseas Development Institute in London.
  • David Heald presented on 'The impact of Brexit on Scotland's public finances' on 28 March 2018 at the University of Glasgow. This was the eighth event in a series of Knowledge Exchange seminars, organised by the project on 'Communicating Brexit's impact on the law, governance and public finances of the UK devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland'. This project is directed by David Heald (Glasgow), Gordon Marnoch (Ulster) and Tom Mullen (Glasgow). The project website, providing PowerPoint slides and videos can be found here. David Heald's presentation can be found here, and a video summary can be found here.
  • David Heald and Gordon Marnoch (Ulster University) presented on 'The implications of Brexit for public spending and public services' on 8 March 2018 at St Matthew's Conference Centre, 20 Great Peter Street, Westminster, London. This was the seventh event in a series of Knowledge Exchange seminars, organised by the project on 'Communicating Brexit's impact on the law, governance and public finances of the UK devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland'. This project is directed by David Heald (Glasgow), Gordon Marnoch (Ulster) and Tom Mullen (Glasgow). The project website, providing PowerPoint slides and videos can be found here. David Heald's presentation can be found here, and a video summary can be found here.
  • David Heald and Gordon Marnoch (Ulster University) presented on 'Public spending and services in Scotland after hard Brexit' on 1 February 2018 at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This was the sixth event in a series of Knowledge Exchange seminars, organised by the project on 'Communicating Brexit's impact on the law, governance and public finances of the UK devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland'. This project is directed by David Heald (Glasgow), Gordon Marnoch (Ulster) and Tom Mullen (Glasgow). The project website, providing PowerPoint slides and videos can be found here. David Heald's presentation can be found here, and a video summary can be found here.

    2017

  • David Heald, who has written extensively about Public-Private Partnerships, participated in the 'Private Finance and Traditional Procurement Analysis' Round Table convened by the UK's National Infrastructure Commission in London on 1 December 2017.
  • David Heald presented on 'Public finance and public expenditure implications' at the 'Wales, Devolution and Brexit' seminar, held in Cardiff on 6 November 2017. This seminar was held under the Chatham House Rule. This was the fourth event in a series of Knowledge Exchange seminars, organised by the project on 'Communicating Brexit's impact on the law, governance and public finances of the UK devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland'. This project is directed by David Heald (Glasgow), Gordon Marnoch (Ulster) and Tom Mullen (Glasgow). The project website, providing PowerPoint slides and videos can be found here.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 27 September 2017 to the Finance and Constitution Committee of the Scottish Parliament. This relates to the Committee's inquiry into the impact of Brexit on the Scottish budget. His written evidence can be found here, and the transcript and video (his contribution starts at 10:34 hours) are also available. He drew upon the findings of the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account project on the impact of Brexit which he then co-directed at the University of Glasgow.
  • David Heald met on 27 April 2017 with the members of the Budget Process Review Group, established by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. This Group is revisiting the issues addressed in 1998 by the Financial Issues Advisory Group of which David Heald was a member. This reconsideration is timely because from 2017-18 the Scottish budget is heavily dependent on the performance of Scottish devolved and assigned tax revenues following the Scotland Act 2016.
  • David Heald presented on 'The Big Divorce Bill, and the implications for Scotland's spending' at the 'Negotiating Brexit' seminar, held at the University of Glasgow on 25 April 2017. This seminar was held under the Chatham House Rule but he recorded a brief summary of his talk. This was the first event in a series of Knowledge Exchange seminars, organised by the project on 'Communicating Brexit's impact on the law, governance and public finances of the UK devolved nations and the Republic of Ireland'. This project is directed by David Heald (Glasgow), Gordon Marnoch (Ulster) and Tom Mullen (Glasgow). The project website, providing PowerPoint slides and videos can be found here.
  • David Heald contributed on 24 April 2017 to the work programme planning meeting of the Finance and Constitution Committee of the Scottish Parliament.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 9 February 2017 to the Scottish Parliament's Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee on the post-Brexit implications of the repatriation of expenditure in Scotland which is currently financed by the European Union. The video appears here. The Committee's Report on 'Determining Scotland's future relationship with the European Union' refers to his evidence on pages 62-64.

    2016

  • David Heald was a member of the short-life committee established by the Royal Society of Edinburgh to respond to the Scottish Government's consultation on the 'Scottish Approach to Taxation'. This was published on 30 September 2016 as Advice Paper AP16-21.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 12 July 2016 to the Scottish Government's user consultation on expanding and speeding up the publication of Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence on 24 May 2016 on the uses of government accounts to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee's Inquiry into government accounts. The Committee reported on 27 April 2017, making extensive reference to David Heald's evidence.
  • David Heald submittted written evidence to the Procedure Committee's Inquiry into the scrutiny of Supply Estimates, the process through which the UK Government secures parliamentary approval for central government spending. On 10 May 2016 he gave supporting oral evidence, the video of which appears here. The Committee reported on 18 March 2017, making extensive reference to David Heald's evidence.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 14 January 2016 in relation to the (then proposed) 'Fiscal Framework' for the Scottish Parliament, following the Scotland Bill 2015-16, to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee of the Scottish Parliament. The video recording is available, and the written transcript here. Subsequently, he submitted to the Committee a memorandum on the misalignment of budgetary timetables at Holyrood and Westminster, and a pessimistic commentary on the Fiscal Framework after its publication on 23 February 2016.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 13 January 2016 in relation to the (then proposed) 'Fiscal Framework' for the Scottish Parliament, following the Scotland Bill 2015-16, to the Scottish Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament. The video recording is available here, and the written transcript here.

    2015

  • David Heald participated on 3 December 2015 in a private meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Devolution (Further Powers) Committee. This considered the potential contents of the 'Fiscal framework' which has to be agreed between the UK and Scottish Governments, in relation to the Scotland Bill 2015 which would extend the taxation powers of the Scottish Parliament.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence in September 2015 to the Independent Review of UK Economic Statistics, led by Sir Charles Bean who reported at the time of the March 2016 Budget.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 21 July 2015 to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee for its inquiry into the devolution of public finances. The video recording appears here.
  • David Heald pre-recorded an interview on fiscal transparency, in English with Italian sub-titles, for an Italian webinar on 16 July 2015. This webinar was organised jointly by the Polytechnic of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) and OpenCoesione (a transparency initiative of the Italian Government which, inter alia, hosts data analyses on the disbursement in Italy of EU funding). The title of the webinar was 'La trasparenza de finanziamenti pubblici nell'era dell'ICT: une sfida aperta'.
  • David Heald took part on 20 May 2015 in 'Accounting for the European public sector: Round table on the ongoing reform of European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS)', one of the sessions of 'Which Accounting Regulation for Europe's Economy and Society', organised by the Research Lab on Financial Regulation (LabEx Refi). This was held under the auspices of the European Parliament, as part of the '10th Rendez-vous Europ ens de Strasbourg'. His views about the the potential role and consequences of EPSAS were published in August 2015, in an academic article in Accounting, Audit and Accountability Journal, co-authored with Ron Hodges of Birmingham Business School.
  • David Heald contributed to the National Audit Office conference on guarantees for instructure funding, which brought together, on 17 March 2015 for a video call, participants at the NAO's Newcastle-upon-Tyne and London offices. This presentation was the origin of the academic paper now published by David Heald and Ron Hodges (University of Birmingham) on Accounting for government guarantees: perspectives on fiscal transparency from four modes of accounting'.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 11 February 2015 to the Committee for Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This was part of its inquiry into the Barnett formula which controls changes to the funding of the Northern Ireland Assembly and also the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly of Wales. His evidence is extensively cited in the Committee's report. The video of that evidence appears here.

    2014

  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 11 December 2014 to the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee of the Scottish Parliament, in support of his earlier written evidence on possible future changes to the funding system for the Scottish Parliament after the Barnett 'Vow' made by UK party leaders on the eve of the Scottish Independence Referendum. The video of his evidence appears here.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 5 November 2014, after the Scottish Independence Referendum, to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, in support of his written evidence on possible future changes to the funding system for the Scottish Parliament. The video of his evidence appears here.
  • David Heald made a presentation on 'Austerity post 2015' at the dinner meeting of the SOLACE dinner meeting at Edinburgh City Chambers on 26 June 2014. (SOLACE is the acronymn for the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers.) He applied to the position of Scotland some of the ideas in his co-edited book, When the Party's Over: The Politics of Fiscal Squeeze in Perspective (Proceedings of the British Academy 197, Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 25 June 2014, ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum, to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, in support of his written evidence on the funding system of the Scottish Parliament. The video recording of his oral evidence begins 55 minutes into the recording.
  • David Heald participated in the annual meeting of OECD Senior Budget Officials Network on Public-Private Partnerships, held in Paris on 17-18 February 2014.
  • David Heald submitted written evidence and also gave oral evidence on 10 February 2014 to the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee's inquiry into the public expenditure implications of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2015. The Committee's report made reference to his evidence. The video of the oral evidence appears here.

    Earlier

  • David Heald gave written and oral evidence on legislative proposals concerning the Wales Audit Office to the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly of Wales on 16 October 2012. His evidence, video of which appears here, was extensively cited in the Committee's Report.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 10 May 2012 at the University of Edinburgh to the McKay Commission on the consequences of devolution for the composition and role of the House of Commons.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 7 February 2011 at the House of Commons to the Communities and Local Government Committee on the abolition of the Audit Commission. His written and oral evidence were extensively cited in the Committee's Report, with the video appearing here.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence on 3 November 2010 on the effects of 2010 Spending Review to the Committee on Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Assembly. His evidence starts 52 minutes into this recording. The Report of the Committee made extensive reference to his evidence. Together with the official transcript, the Report can be found here.
  • David Heald was specialist adviser to the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons from 1989 to 2010, assisting it on matters relating to Supply Estimates, government accounting and public expenditure.
  • From 2004 until its dissolution in 2010, David Heald was a member of the Technical Advisory Group which advised the Audit Commission on accounting and auditing developments.
  • From 2007 to 2013, David Heald was a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. This body is responsible for the research programme funded by ICAEW's charitable trusts and organises the annual 'Information for Better Markets' conference.
  • David Heald served a five-year term as a member of the Financial Reporting Advisory Board for the period 1 August 2004 to 31 July 2009, having been nominated as an independent economist by the Head of the Government Economic Service.
  • From July 2002 to July 2008, David Heald was specialist adviser to the Public Accounts Commission, with regard to its role in approving the Corporate Plan and Supply Estimate of the National Audit Office. He resigned this role so that he could publicly oppose legislative proposals to change the governance of the National Audit Office by establishing the NAO as a corporate body with a Chair and Non-Executive Director majority. He has contributed articles on this matter to Public Finance, Public (the montly magazine published by the Guardian) and Public Money & Management
  • David Heald contributed to the 'Round Table on the Budget Process' on 10 June 2008 held by the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence in Edinburgh on 4 May 2004 to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament on 'Budget Process 2005-06'.
  • David Heald gave oral evidence in Edinburgh on 16 May 2002 to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, chaired by Professor The Lord Norton of Louth. This was part of its inquiry into 'Devolution: inter-institutional relations in the United Kingdom'. His written evidence concerns financial relationships between the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations, including the future of the Barnett formula.
  • David Heald produced a report on the funding of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was presented at a conference in Belfast on 13 March 2003. His Report was published by the Northern Ireland Economic Council, the predecessor organisation of the now closed Economic Research Institute for Northern Ireland. The summary Policy Research Brief appears here. This research was co-funded by NIEC and the Department of Finance and Personnel.
  • Along side Ken Wild (partner in Deloitte and a member of the Financial Reporting Advisory Board), David Heald gave evidence to the Treasury Committee on 7 March 2000, strongly supporting the Treasury's plan to go ahead with the 2001-02 implementation date for Resource Accounting, notwithstanding the proposal of the then Comptroller & Auditor General for a one-year postponement.

David Heald at The Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow
Email: david.heald@glasgow.ac.uk