IRRV Scottish Conference
& Exhibition 

Anouk Berthier, Head of Non-Domestic Rates Policy, Scottish Government

Anouk Berthier is Head of Non-Domestic Rates Policy at the Scottish Government. Prior to that, she worked as a fiscal analyst in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. She has Masters in Politics, Economics and Real Estate, has lectured in Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh, and is a veterinarian by training.

Steve Black, Business Development Manager, LoCTA

Steve Black joined LoCTA in July 2021, as Business Development Manager. Steve has worked with/for Authorities over his entire working life; from leisure and the delivery of sport/wellbeing, through Children, Families and Learning Disability Teams, before doing a social work degree. Steve worked supporting families in central Manchester and Trafford. Steve was the Development Lead delivering the DWP’s Working Well Projects to ESA claimants further from the workplace, and his last act before joining LoCTA was delivering the Census 2021 for Trafford MBC.

Lynn Brady, Revenues & Benefits Service Manager, Perth & Kinross Council

Lynn has over 38 years of experience in the Revenues and Benefits field and since 2009 she has led the service at Perth and Kinross Council. She is a proud IRRV qualified professional and former IRRV lecturer in Scotland. She is passionate about tackling poverty and getting the best outcomes for families and takes great pride in her teams' well established role, impact, commitment and strong track record of delivering - even in a climate of rising expectations and complex challenges. Lynn believes in the power of teamwork, early intervention and doing the right thing for those who need it most.

William Cameron, National Enforcement Director, Scott & Co (Scotland) LLP

William is part of Scott & Co’s Senior Leadership Team and responsible for all Sheriff Officer services and support operations including associated client services. As a qualified Sheriff Officer for 35 years and Messenger-at-Arms, William has held a number of senior positions within the profession in addition to being involved in Senior Leadership roles for over 25 years. He is currently Deputy President of the Society of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers (SMASO), having previously held the office of President between 2010-2012. William also sits within the Fees Committee, is a former member of the Committee of Examiners and recently chaired a sub-committee responsible for SMASO submissions to the Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Act 2024. William regularly presents at industry and client events.

Jenni Craig, Director – Resilient Communities, Scottish Borders Council

Paula Doherty, Revenues and Benefits Operations Team Leader, Dumfries & Galloway Council

Paula started her career with Dumfries & Galloway Council in January 2000 as a Clerical Assistant with responsibility for a stapler in the filing room. The introduction of a document management system and the many and varied changes since 2000 saw her career within Revenue Services develop. Current remit includes: • Housing Benefit - including overpayment recovery • Council Tax Reduction • Scottish Welfare Fund • Discretionary Housing Payments • Financial Assessments for care at home and residential care • Income Maximisation • Welfare and Housing Options • Council Tax administration • Non-Domestic Rates Paula is immediate past president of the IRRV Scottish Association, chair of the IRRV Welfare Reform consortium and current Education Liaison Officer for Scotland. As an active member of the IRRV Paula is a firm believer that by working together we can meet the challenges ahead.

Clare Elliott, Head of Local Authority Partnerships, Engagement and Delivery, DWP

Clare is Head of Local Authority Partnerships, Engagement and Delivery in DWP with oversight of Housing Benefit delivery across GB as well as the delivery of a number of grants funded scheme including Discretionary Housing Payments and the Household Support Fund. Joining the Civil Service on a one year contract in 1986 as a junior economist, she was attracted by the bright lights of public service and has never left with stints in education, training and skills, employment, small business and local government performance.

Matthew Evans, Head of Service Revenues & Benefits, Wrexham County Borough Council

Matthew is Head of Service for the Revenues and Benefits service, and has over 20 years of experience in Revenues & Benefits in a number of different roles. Matthew is the current chair of the Welsh Revenues & Benefit Manager Group and is involved in a number of working groups relating to Revenues and Benefits both locally and nationally and works closely with Welsh Government in relation to regulations and policy development in this area. Matthew is a past president of the North and Mid Wales Association.

Neil Ferguson – Head of Corporate Functions, Revenue Scotland

Neil is a member of the Senior Leadership Team of Revenue Scotland and as Head of Corporate Functions has responsibility for eight teams: Tax Development, Finance, Digital Design and Information Technology, People Services, Governance, Statistics and Management Information, and Strategy and Communications. Neil has worked on devolved taxes since 2012 and been with Revenue Scotland since 2016. Prior to his current post, he worked on the Additional Dwelling Supplement, led the Air Departure Tax programme and the development of corporate plans. With the Scottish Government, he was Devolved Taxes Legislation Team Leader and led on the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Bill and other areas of devolved tax legislation. He also worked on the Referendum Bill and led the introduction of the Home Report, which transformed the approach to the buying and selling of homes in Scotland.

Christopher Grose, Director - Business Rates, Hartnell Taylor Cook

Christopher is a Director in the Business Rate team at Hartnell Taylor Cook. Having joined the business rates world in the run up to the 1990 revaluation he has dealt with appeals on many different property types in every Revaluation since including a spell in the Valuation Office. Christopher is Vice Chair of the IRRV Valuation Faculty, Secretary of the London & Home Counties IRRV Association and a member of IRRV Council

Sheila Haig, Customer Manager, Transactions - Assessment and Finance, The City of Edinburgh Council

Sheila is responsible for delivering the Council’s Assessment and Finance Transactional processing services, delivering improved operation performance across a diverse range of services such as Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Discretionary Housing Payments, School grants and placements service, social care finance, housing support services for national landlord registration scheme and the Common Housing Register as well as Edinburgh’s banking reconciliation and payments service. More recently Sheila has become heavily involved in Edinburgh’s response to poverty prevention and mitigation and is a member of COSLA Welfare & Social Security Officer Advice Group.

Sheila has worked in City of Edinburgh for 38 years, starting as a YTS and working across various services before settling into the Revenues and Benefits environments over the last 32 years.

Andrew Hetherton, Director of Andrew Hetherton Consulting Ltd

Andrew is a Director of Andrew Hetherton Consulting Ltd and a real estate and property tax consultant. He has 30 years of experience as a consultant in private practice dealing with wider range of property types. Andrew is an elected member of IRRV Council and Chair of the Professional Conduct Committee. He is also the Managing Editor of the IRRV Insight and Valuer publications. He is one of a number of Institute represents on the Professional Bodies Liaison Group, Valuation Tribunal and Upper Tribunal User Groups. He is also a member of the RICS Local Taxation and Policy Group and the RSA Committee. Andrew is a member of the International Property Tax Institute (IPTI), an Associate of the International Assessing Officers Association (IAAO) and also member of the Compulsory Purchase Association (CPA). Andrew is an Associate Tutor at the University for the Built Environment (formerly known as the University College of Estate Management) and the Course Leader for the IRRV’s Certificate in Rating.

Heather Honeyman, Assessor, Fife Council

Heather graduated with an Honours degree in Estate Management in 1988. She then joined Fife Council’s Estates Department, where she trained to become a Chartered Surveyor, passing her Assessment of Professional Competence in 1991. After a spell in private practice, conducting residential surveys, she entered the field of valuation for Rating and Council Tax, joining Fife Assessor Service as a Valuer. Gaining an MBA in 2007, she moved into other positions within Fife Assessor Service and in 2013 she became Assessor for Fife Council. In 2021, she joined the Scottish Assessors’ Association’s Executive Committee, serving as Secretary and Vice President, before taking on the role of President in 2024.

Amy Hopkins, Business Rates Associate Director, GL Hearn

Amy is a Rating Surveyor, specialising in Scottish Business Rates with a current focus on Retail and Leisure. Over 14 years’ experience with the Scottish Assessors Association prior to moving into Private Practice in 2022. I have worked on the 2005, 2010, 2017 and 2023 Revaluations and across a wide range of property and subject types. My key focus areas are client engagement, negotiation and proposal & appeal progression, along with acting as Expert Witness at appeal hearing.

Sarah Howie, Associate, Newmark

Sarah is an Associate at Newmark, working within the Energy/Industrial Advisory and Business Rates team. Sarah is a Chartered Surveyor and an RICS Registered Valuer, and joined the Gerald Eve (now Newmark) Energy team over five years ago, bringing valuable knowledge from prior roles in Oil and Gas, land surveying, and land feasibility. Sarah specialises in the energy sector and her work is divided between specialist valuation for rating and other purposes (including secured lending), and transactional/commercial advisory, including investment, leasing, and strategic consultancy for energy projects. Sarah advises power generators and other utility providers in Scotland, notably dealing with the valuation of the Transmission and Distribution networks, wind farms, battery storage, hydro, and other energy-related premises. Sarah also advises on land options, leases and purchases to ensure developers secure appropriate land rights and is responsible for ongoing relationships with landowners throughout the lifecycle of renewable energy projects. Sarah represents Newmark on the SPF Commercial Real Estate committee and the business rates working group.

Tylor-Maria Johnson, Client Services Manager, Policy in Practice

Tylor-Maria is leading Policy in Practice’s current work on the take up of benefits like Pension Credit, Universal Credit, and Healthy Start, collaborating with local authorities to use their data to tackle the £23 billion unclaimed benefits gap. She has contributed to analyses on the impact of income volatility on Universal Credit households for work commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She has been featured in QuidsIn Magazine about the takeup of Healthy Start, and has spoken on webinars and at previous IRRV Conferences about the possibilities and potential of Universal Credit Data. She has a deep understanding of qualitative and quantitative social science research methods that is complimented by her knowledge of benefits programs in the UK.

Elaine Lorimer, Chief Executive, Revenue Scotland

Elaine Lorimer was appointed Chief Executive of Revenue Scotland in March 2016. She has over 20 years of experience working at senior executive and board level in the civil service in London and, prior to that, local government in Scotland. She is passionate about building organisational capability and driving transformational change. She is also a qualified lawyer and public finance accountant. From January 2012 to March 2016 she was the Chief Executive of the Law Commission of England and Wales, a statutory body charged with promoting law reform. Previous roles include Director of Corporate Services for the National School of Government and Deputy Director at the Office of the Rail Regulator. She was also the Head of Legal and Administrative Services at Strathclyde Passenger Transport in the late 1990s. In 2019 Elaine was awarded Chief Executive of the Year at the Scottish Women’s Awards.

Jim McCafferty, Portfolio Holder: Education and Membership, IRRV

Jim has served on the national council for over 10 years and is currently Education & Membership portfolio holder. He is a Past President of the IRRV and a member of the IRRV Benefits and Revenues Faculty Boards. Jim was also President of the IRRV Scottish Association. He has lectured for the IRRV in both England and Scotland. He has been a speaker at many conferences and seminars in the UK and presented papers on local taxation in the USA and the Netherlands. Jim has also represented the IRRV in giving evidence to Scottish Government Committees and various consultative bodies. Jim has worked for several councils in England and Scotland and for the Valuation Tribunal Service. Jim worked for West Lothian Council as Revenues and Benefits Manager and also as Corporate Procurement Manager. He was a member of the DAS Review Board. He has held Revenues and Benefits Manager 10 times including on two separate occasions at two councils. He has worked as a consultant for several clients including Councils in England and Scotland, RSLs, IT Suppliers and the Scottish Government where he produced a report on Council Tax Reduction Reviews As Project Manager, Jim returned Revenues and Benefits and IT Services to in-house provision following the break–up of a shared service. He also took part in a feasibility study for a large Council bringing its Revenues service in house after a lengthy period of outsourcing. This gives him a rare insight into what can cause a shared service to fail and what you should do to protect against this. Jim has also held an interim position as Revenues and Benefits Development Manager for BT Lancashire Services between December 2015 and December 2016. In 2017 he worked an assignment with Birmingham City Council supporting their management in the return of the Revenues Service to in-house provision. Following on from that he has held interim senior management roles at several councils including Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, Melton Borough Council and Richmondshire District Council.

Ivan McKee MSP, Minister for Public Finance, Scottish Government

Ivan McKee was appointed as the Minister for Public Finance in May 2024. His career has involved a number of senior roles in manufacturing and business, managing companies in the UK as well as Poland, Finland, Croatia and Bosnia. Early in his career, Ivan spent two years with VSO in Bangladesh. He is currently a trustee of the charity CEI, which supports education and health projects in Bangladesh. Ivan has been MSP for Glasgow Provan since May 2016. He was brought up in Glasgow where he studied at the University of Strathclyde. He also studied at the University of Newcastle. He was previously the Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation and Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise.

James Messis, Council Tax and Reform Policy Team Leader, Scottish Government

James joined the Civil Service in 2015, starting his career at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Two years later he joined the Scottish Government, taking up the role of Policy Manager within the Non-Domestic Rates Policy Team. He later became the policy lead on the Fiscal Framework for Local Government. He is now the Council Tax Policy Team Leader, which is a position he has held since February 2023. James has an undergraduate degree in Law and a Master's degree in Public Policy.

Jonathan Murphy, Advocate, AM Advocates

Daniel Pearce, Director of Service Development & Sales, Telsolutions

With 31 years’ experience in designing and delivering services that simplify and automate business applications. Daniel has a background in producing innovative communications, techniques and strategies that reduce costs and improve productivity. Our advanced services reduce the cost of customer engagement, promote self-serve freeing up resources. Specialising in debt recovery and customer engagement applications for local government and enforcement, our services are industry proven and award winning. Daniel now develops services merging behavioural science and technology to improve outcomes based on current public behaviours and habits with the objective to improve outcomes for both parties more effectively.

Jayne Smith, Director, Hammond Associates

Jayne is a recognised business administrator and has held senior positions in marketing and advertising including directorships in several associated industries. Whilst working in the voluntary sector she experienced, first-hand, the problems associated with funding charitable projects. Jayne joined the board of Hammond Associates in 2013 to manage the company financial administration section, and to assist with the overall management of this rapidly expanding business. In 2016 became Operations Director heading up the recently formed finance, administration, and sales departments and fronting the formation of the Property Management division of the company which successfully launched in 2018. Further in 2018, Jayne spearheaded the development of the Scottish market and in 2022 became Director of the newly formed Scottish Office, Hammond Associates (Scotland) Ltd.

Rachel Stewart, Revenues Lead Officer, Scottish Borders Council

Rachel has been with Scottish Borders Council since 2007, starting as a Customer Advisor, where she developed strong expertise in customer service and local government processes. In January 2021, she progressed to Supervisor, leading frontline teams and driving service improvements until November 2022. She then served as a Financial Inclusion Officer, supporting residents with financial wellbeing and access to essential services. Since May 2023, Rachel has held the role of Revenues Lead Officer, where she oversees revenue operations, compliance, and strategic initiatives to enhance efficiency and customer experience. She brings extensive knowledge and a commitment to service excellence. Rachel achieved her IRRV Technician qualification with distinction in Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rates, earning the award for Scotland’s top-performing student in 2022. In 2024, her team won the IRRV Performance Award for Excellence in Education and Staff Development, reflecting her passion for growth and leadership.

Nicola Sutherland, Team Leader of the Welfare Rights & Welfare Fund Teams, Perth and Kinross Council

Nicola is currently the Team Leader of the Welfare Rights & Welfare Fund Teams and worked in the Council for 22 years. Nicola was previously a volunteer at Citizen's Advice and Rights Fife after completing a Politics degree at Dundee University. She is privileged to work with amazing colleagues with a shared vision of serving the public in the best way possible making the best use of resources. Nicola is passionate about eradicating poverty and if given 3 wishes ending poverty would be up there with maximum income/wealth levels and calorie-free cheese.

Audrey Whyte, Benefit Take Up Campaign Lead, Citizens Advice and Rights Fife

Currently celebrating 18 years of employment at Citizens Advice & Rights Fife, known locally as CARF. Starting in the organisation as a Money Adviser, I progressed to managing several Financial Inclusion and Fuel Poverty partnership projects before taking on this strategic role of Benefit Take Up Campaign Lead. I joined CARF from a position in Fife Council’s Local Office Network where I supported tenants and residents in the highest SIMD area of Fife. The role encompassed assisting with benefit entitlements and applications for parking or travel passes while undertaking debt collection functions and conducting property and garden inspections. Prior to joining the Local Authority in 2005, I was an Air Traffic Controller and so I have had some variety throughout my working career.

Gary Williamson, Senior Surveyor, Newmark

Gary is part of the Glasgow Business Rates team at Newmark where he specialises in valuation for non-domestic rates. His expertise spans a range of sectors, including but not limited to Retail, Hospitality, Licensed and Leisure. Prior to joining the Newmark team, Gary worked at the Assessor for Glasgow and Central Valuation Board where he gained invaluable experience across a range of property types, notably gaining significant understanding of the Glasgow market. Gary conducted research and negotiations with the Assessors within the Scottish Assessors Association on all the non-domestic rates proposals for the 2023 Revaluation. Gary also has experience in cost-based valuations which includes both public and private sector properties. During his time at Newmark, Gary has achieved rates savings for a range of clients through discussion with various Assessor’s offices in Scotland. Gary is currently supporting a range of clients on the lead up to the 2026 Revaluation in Scotland.

Gillian Young, Customer Advice and Support Manager, Scottish Borders Council