Members of the Boundary Commission for Scotland
Chairman
Speaker of the House of Commons
Ex-officio appointment.
The Speaker of the House of Commons is ex-officio Chairman of the Boundary Commission for Scotland and of the equivalent Commissions for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, the Speaker takes no part in the discussions and decisions of the Commissions.
Deputy Chairman
The Honourable Lord Woolman (Stephen Woolman)
Appointed from 1 January 2009 for a period of 4 years.
Lord Woolman was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court in March 2008. He is a graduate of Aberdeen University. Between 1978 and 1987 he was a lecturer at Edinburgh University, where for three years he was the Associate Dean of the Law School. In 1987 Lord Woolman was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates. He was standing Junior Counsel for the Inland Revenue, the Ministry of Defence (Procurement) and the Office of Fair Trading. He took silk in 1998.
From 1999 to 2002 Lord Woolman served as an Advocate Depute. Between 2004 and 2008 he was Keeper of the Advocates' Library. Lord Woolman was formerly Chairman of the Scottish Council of Law Reporting, the Bar Mediation Group and the Free Legal Services Unit. He is the author of a book on the Scots law of contract.
Commissioners
Dr Elspeth Graham
Reappointed on 1 January 2007 for a period of 4 years.
Dr Elspeth F. Graham is Reader in Geography in the School of Geography and Geosciences at the University of St Andrews. She studied at the Universities of St Andrews and Durham where she obtained the degrees of MA (Hons) in Geography and Economics (St Andrews) and PhD (Dunelm). She has also held academic appointments at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA and at The National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on population change and health variations, both in Europe and in South-East Asia. She has published extensively on population issues, including Scotland's demography, and has recently completed a project investigating low fertility in Scotland and England.
Dr Graham was a Commissioner on the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland from 1994 to 2004. She has considerable experience of the work of the Boundary Commission for Scotland, having served as a Commissioner since 1999 and having completed the Fifth Periodical Review of constituencies for the Westminster Parliament in 2004.
Kenneth McDonald
Appointed on 7 June 2007 for a period of 4 years.
As a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, Kenneth McDonald served for almost 30 years in Local Government prior to retirement in 1999. He has experience with a variety of Councils and areas including Ross and Cromarty, Northumberland, Falkirk, Central Region and most recently Stirling Council where he was Service Manager and had a lead role in preparing for the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. In addition to his staffing and budget management roles, he has wide experience in the planning functions with an emphasis on environment, countryside and rural development issues working in partnership with public agencies and community groups. Since retiring from local authority work he has undertaken various short term consultancy contracts. He also serves as a Commissioner on the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland.
Secretary
The work of the Commission is supported by a small Secretariat which is headed by the Secretary, Hugh Buchanan.
Hugh Buchanan has spent his career in mapping and geographic information, including policy and technical roles. Hugh joined the Commission after being External Relations Manager in Scotland for Ordnance Survey from 2001 until 2007. His previous posts included user support for web services at EDINA, part of the Computing Service of the University of Edinburgh, and as a lecturer in what is now the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at the University of Newcastle, undertaking a variety a professional, research and teaching activities. Hugh is a Chartered Surveyor, has a PhD in geographic data handling and a mathematics degree.