Advisory Council member

Prof. Jim Gallagher CB FRSE

Jim Gallagher CB FRSE is a company director (mainly in the life insurance and pensions sector), an academic and a former public servant.

Jim is a director the Pension Protection Fund and has most recently also held non-executive roles in the of life companies in the Phoenix Group, which is the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business. Previously, he has held positions at Reassure UK, Royal London, Legal and General, Police Mutual and others. He has other commitments in the charitable and third sectors.

Since 2005 Jim has been a Visiting Professor in Glasgow University School of Law, and since 2017 has held an honorary professorship at the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research at the University of St Andrews. From 2011 he was Gwylim Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He writes widely on devolution and constitutional issues, tweeting, now and again, as @ProfJimG. He chairs the think tank Our Scottish Future.

Professor Gallagher had a previous career as a UK civil servant, in Edinburgh and Whitehall. He has been head of the Scottish justice department, private secretary to two Secretaries of State for Scotland and twice a member of No 10 policy units in London. In 2007 he became the UK government’s most senior official advising on devolution and constitutional issues, worked in Gordon Brown’s No 10 team and was secretary to the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution. After leaving government, he advised the Better Together campaign in the 2014 Scottish referendum.

Views from the board

  • Having heard investors that I know well, actively stepping back from investing in the Scottish economy, I fear for the future and am urging business leaders to share their support for Scotland to remain in the Union of the United Kingdom. It will only be by strength of voice and an evidenced based case that we will be able to defend the will of Scottish businesses of all sizes to remain in the Union.
    — Robert D. Kilgour
  • Patriotism is a love for your country and as a proud Scot I have spent my career helping to build economic opportunities and in attracting investment. I am also proud to be British and passionately want the United Kingdom to endure.  To succeed in that aim, we must acknowledge that remaining part of the Union is a key lynchpin in growing Scotland’s wealth.
    — Jack Perry CBE