Sandy Cumming CBE, Chief Executive of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) for the past nine and a half years, plans to leave the organisation next month and take on a new, national role.
Mr Cumming (57), is the Scottish Government’s choice to help spearhead the development of renewable offshore energy across the public sector in Scotland.
The new post will involve working closely with Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, and liaising between the Government and relevant public sector bodies – including local authorities, enterprise agencies and the Crown Estate – to ensure effective collaboration on a range of offshore green energy projects.
It is a one-year secondment, lasting until spring 2011. Following this, Mr Cumming plans to pursue other opportunities in the public and voluntary sectors.
The process of recruiting a new Chief Executive for Highlands and Islands Enterprise will begin immediately.
Born in Dingwall, Ross-shire, raised on a farm in Strathconon and schooled at Dingwall Academy, Sandy Cumming has worked for HIE and its predecessor body for almost all of his career to date.
He joined the Highlands and Islands Development Board (HIDB) in 1973, after graduating from Edinburgh University with a BSc Honours degree in Agricultural Economics.
During his time with HIE and the HIDB, Mr Cumming has held a variety of key posts, including Head of Natural Resources, Director of Growing Businesses, and five years in charge of the local enterprise company serving Ross and Cromarty in the 1990s.
Taking on the new Government role will resolve a potential conflict of interest for the Chief Executive, whose home neighbours Beechwood Farm, Inverness, a 215-acre site which HIE owns and plans to develop over several years as an education and business park.
Mr Cumming himself declared his interest as soon as HIE began exploring the development of the Inverness Campus project in 2008. Because of this, he has played no part in any discussion or decision regarding the project to date.
However, that could not be a permanent solution, because, as HIE’s statutory accountable officer, the Chief Executive is required to take a comprehensive overview of all of HIE’s operations.
Both HIE and the Scottish Government made strenuous attempts to identify a suitable governance solution, before concluding that Mr Cumming could not continue in his present post while the risk of a conflict of interest remained.
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