Professor David Heald

David Heald has recorded a number of videos expounding the results of his research. He has frequently given evidence to Parliamentary committees in the United Kingdom.

On Brexit

• David Heald contributed to a workshop on ‘The Regional Impacts of Brexit: Devolved Nations’, part of the University of Birmingham’s ESRC-financed project on ‘The Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Regions, its Cities and its Sectors’. The event was held at the Scottish Government’s offices at Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, on 4 May 2019.
• The UK debate on Brexit neglected both the likely effects on UK public expenditure and the implications for the relationships between the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Watch David Heald speak on Brexit’s Challenge to UK and Devolved Government on these issues on 8 March 2018 at the London seminar organised by his Glasgow ESRC-financed project .
• On this video link, watch David Heald speak on 6 November 2017 in Cardiff on the probable implications of Brexit for the public finances of the UK devolved nations, a seminar organised by his Glasgow ESRC-financed project.
• Watch David Heald give evidence on 27 September 2017 about the effects of Brexit on the Scottish Budget to the Finance and Constitution Committee of the Scottish Parliament. The video appears here, with his contribution starting at 10.33 hours.
• On this video link, watch David Heald speak about the UK's Brexit Divorce Bill at the University of Glasgow on 25 April 2017. This seminar was organised by his Glasgow ESRC-financed project. The ideas in this presentation were later developed and published as an academic article.
• Watch David Heald discuss the funding of repatriated expenditure after Brexit, at the Scottish Parliament’s Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee on 9 February 2017. The video appears here.
• David Heald was a speaker at the 'Scotland and Brexit' conference on 20 September 2016, organised by Edinburgh University's Centre on Constitutional Change. He spoke on the implications of Brexit for Scotland's public finances, in the context of the implementation of the Scotland Act 2016 and of the Fiscal Framework negotiated in March 2016 between the UK and Scottish Governments. On this video link. David Heald's speech is at the beginning of Part Two. After other speakers, the Question and Answer session to which he contributes starts at 39 minutes into Part Two. Part One of the conference appears here.

On fiscal transparency

• 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 emphasised that institutional arrangements affect transparency in his written evidence to the House of Commons Political and Institutional Reform Committee on 13 February 2014 when it inquired into the effects of Fixed-term Parliaments. This evidence and his web-cast oral evidence is cited in the Committee's Report.

• David Heald gave oral evidence on the UK Coalition Government's December 2012 relaunch of the Private Finance Initiative, now known as PF2, to the Treasury Committee on 5 March 2013. The web cast is available here (his evidence starts 55 minutes into the recording). His evidence was extensively cited in the Committee's March 2014 Report.

• David Heald gave oral evidence on 1 October 2024 to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the implications of Scottish Budget 2025-26 for local government. He had previously submitted written evidence, with the meeting transcript being here and the video here.
• David Heald gave oral evidence on 10 September 2024 to the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the sustainability of Scotland's public finances, ahead of the 2025-26 Scottish Budget. He had previously submitted written evidence, with the meeting transcript being here and the video here.
• David Heald gave oral evidence on 19 September 2023 to the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the sustainability of Scotland's public finances. He had previously submitted written evidence, with the meeting transcript being here and the video here.
• David Heald gave oral evidence on 8 March 2022 to the Finance and Public Administration Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the Scottish Government's plans for a Resource Spending Review covering the life of the 2021 Parliament. He had previously submitted written evidence,with the transcript being here and the video here.
• 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.
• David Heald was a speaker at the 'Scotland and Brexit' conference on 20 September 2016, organised by Edinburgh University's Centre on Constitutional Change. He spoke on the implications of Brexit for Scotland's public finances, in the context of the implementation of the Scotland Act 2016 and of the Fiscal Framework negotiated in March 2016 between the UK and Scottish Governments. On this video link. David Heald's speech is at the beginning. After other speakers, the Question and Answer session to which he also contributes starts at 39 minutes into the video. Part One of the conference appears here.
• David Heald made a presentation on 'Scotland's Fiscal Framework' at the 'Devolution and Fiscal Governance Conference: How devolved governments are funded and how the system is changing', held at the Institute for Government in London on 29 March 2016. A video of the event appears here.
• 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.
• Following the Scottish Independence Referendum and subsequent Smith Commission report on extended fiscal devolution, David Heald gave evidence to the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords on 21 July 2015. The video appears here.
• David Heald gave evidence to the Finance Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly on 12 February 2015, warning that too much attention had been paid to the devolution of Corporation Tax which in reality could mean a lot of brass plates. The video appears here.
• 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 submitted written evidence and gave oral evidence on 5 November 2014 to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament. These hearings were held after the No vote in the Scottish Independence referendum on 18 September 2014, forming part of the Committee's Inquiry into further devolved powers. The webcast can be found here.
• David Heald submitted written evidence and gave oral evidence on 25 June 2014 to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament. These hearings were held in advance of the Scottish Independence referendum on 18 September 2014: he was asked to concentrate on the financial implications of a No vote. The web cast appears here, with his evidence starting 70 minutes into the proceedings.
• Oral evidence on the October 2010 Spending Review to the Committee of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Assembly on 3 November 2010 (David Heald's evidence runs from 53 minutes to 1 hour 21 minutes of this recording), the written transcript appearing within the document 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).
• 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.
• On this video link, watch David Heald give evidence on 12 December 2018 to the Procedure Committee’s Inquiry about whether there should be a Westminster Budget Committee. He strongly supported this proposal which has some resemblance to his proposal for a ‘Spending and Tax Committee’ to complement the work of the Treasury Committee, the wide remit of which deflects attention from budgetary scrutiny.
• Watch David Heald discuss the weaknesses of the Westminster Parliament's Supply Procedure at an evidence session of the Procedure Committee on 10 May 2016. The United Kingdom is out-of-line with international practice in having expenditure authorised in July. four months into the financial year which starts on 1 April. He clarified the roles and complementarities of three modes of government accounting: financial reporting, budgets and national accounts statistics. The video appears here.
• Watch David Heald discuss the proposed European Public Sector Accounting Standards at the European Court of Auditors' Workshop in Luxembourg on 25 and 26 January 2016. He clarified the roles and complementarities of three modes of government accounting: financial reporting, budgets and national accounts statistics. The video appears here.
• The implications for public spending of fixed-term Parliaments: David Heald emphasised that institutional arrangements affect transparency in his written evidence to the House of Commons Political and Institutional Reform Committee on 13 February 2014 when it inquired into the effects of Fixed-term Parliaments. This written evidence and his oral evidence (video available here) are cited in the Committee's report.
• David Heald gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee of the Welsh Assembly on 16 October 2012, describing the Public Audit Bill as 'fundamentally misguided' in creating a Board with a supervisory role over the Auditor General for Wales. The video appears here.
• Following the UK Government's announcement of the abolition of the Audit Commission, David Heald gave oral and written evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee of the House of Commons on 7 February 2011. The video appears here.