Our Board

Jim held the post of Scottish Public Services Ombudsman from May 2009 to April 2017. Prior to that, from 2007 to 2009, he was the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland and a member of the Scottish Funding Council from 2004 to 2009. From 1987 to 1995 he was General Secretary for the Educational Institute of Scotland. He is currently a Member of the Scottish Government Panel to Review the Regulation of Legal Services in Scotland.

In his earlier career Jim was a Non-executive Chairman of Logica and ran a management consultancy. He is currently a Trustee of the National Mining Museum of Scotland and Positive Prisons, Positive Futures.  He was awarded a CBE in the 2018 New Years’ honours list.

Sara Hesp is a qualified Chartered Surveyor . She worked in the Valuation Office Agency, where she was a Principal Valuer, for more than twenty years.

Since leaving, she has worked across Scotland in  a variety of roles, including in the Security Industry Authority and as an independent adjudicator, resolving disputes between landlords and tenants. She is also a trained mediator and an Ordinary Member of the First-Tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber). Sara has been heavily involved within her local community both as a member and treasurer of the Parent Council of her local primary school and as a community councillor. She has also previously been a Director and Company Secretary of a Community Development Trust and a Director of her local Village Association.

Sarah McLuckie has a wide variety of experience in the field of investigation, inspection and scrutiny, particularly in complaints management. She has held management  positions within the NHS, for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, OFGEM and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders Immigration. She currently works as the operations manager for the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, where she leads the casework team.

Morag Sheppard also joins as a new member of the Board. Morag retired from Capita Life and Pensions in June 2015, having been Frameworks Director since October 2012, creating and implementing operational control frameworks deployed in the UK, Europe and India. Prior to that she was Operations Director from April 2008.  Morag has studied at the Universities of Aberdeen, Munich and Edinburgh.

Her background includes corporate governance: implementing organisational change; and operational risk management in a highly regulated sector.  Morag has directed a large complaints function, resolving a variety of complaints from the public and professional advisors.

June Andrews OBE is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and of the City and Guilds Institute and a professor emeritus of the University of Stirling.  She graduated in Philosophy and English from the University of Glasgow and holds a master’s degree from the University of Nottingham and a degree in Law from the University of Edinburgh.

June is a registered nurse with over 30 years’ experience in the NHS and the private and non-profit care home sectors. A former Senior Civil Servant and trade union leader, she was the Scottish Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing.

She is the adviser to the Dementia Services Development Trust, an established charity and currently works internationally as a consultant to families, organisations and governments on the provision of care for older people. She works to improve the public understanding of dementia through her books, training and film making.

Niki Maclean has a background in complaints handling, having worked with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman since 2005, taking on the role of Director in 2010.

Prior to this, Niki worked as a senior HR professional within the field of HR, organisation change and people development across the public and private sectors including the teaching, health, legal and accountancy professions. Niki’s focus during her career has been the improvement and professionalisation of complaints handling.  This has included supporting improvement within Scottish public bodies through a culture of good complaints handling and getting decisions right first time. More widely, across the UK and Irish ombudsman community, Niki led the development of ombudsman wide industry service standards for the benefit of service users.

Niki currently sits on scrutiny forums for monitoring organisation and sector complaints performance in both the health and water sectors and is a member of the UK Administrative Justice Council which has a focus on access to administrative justice.

Kay is a QC and member of the Faculty of Advocates. She was formerly a solicitor for 10 years. She has acted on behalf of, and against, claimants in a wide range of civil cases. As a result, she has a good understanding of the appropriate service which lawyers are expected to provide to clients. She also has a particular interest in human rights and equality, and hopes to draw upon this in her work with the SLCC.

Denise is a solicitor in private practice and currently managing director of Optima Legal (Scotland) Limited. Her background is as a civil litigator. Denise was previously a member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board, a post she served for almost 10 years which included the role of  Convenor of the Legal Services Cases Committee (a committee she still sits on as a co-opted member). Denise was formerly a member of a Law Society Client Relations Committee and has a keen interest in how complaints are handled and resolved. In addition, Denise is a tutor at the University of Glasgow, teaching Civil Litigation and Advanced Civil Litigation in the Diploma of Professional Legal Practice.

Frank is the Director of Corporate & Legal Services at Castle Craig Hospital near Peebles.

Prior to joining Castle Craig, he was a partner in a global law firm and he has also been a partner in a large Scottish law firm. Frank also ran his own high street firm for a number of years and so he has a broad range of experience from working in different types of legal practice.

His background is in civil litigation and he has a particular interest in professional discipline and regulation. He is a former member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Nominations Committee and its Practising Certificate Committee.

Frank is Chair of the Disciplinary Appointments Committee of ICAS. He has an LLM in Human Rights Law.