Scotland's Local Environmental Quality seminar 2022/23

Speakers

Paul Wallace (presenter)

Campaigns and Social Innovation Manager, Keep Scotland Beautiful

Paul joined Keep Scotland Beautiful in 2013.  He has responsibility for managing behaviour change campaigns, including Upstream Battle and Cup Movement. Prior to this he spent 15 years in local government working in senior management positions.  He has extensive experience in strategic planning, policy development, research, partnership working, community planning and SOAs, performance management and corporate communications. Paul is a graduate of Glasgow Caledonian University with a BA (Hons) in Public Administration and Management.

Nicole Paterson (presenter)

Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Nicole is an award-winning local government Chief Officer, with nearly three decades of experience across five local authorities, consultancy and environmental non-executive roles. With more than twenty-five years of experience in local government specifically, Nicole joined SEPA from North Lanarkshire Council, Scotland’s fourth largest local authority, where her role as Head of Environmental Assets saw her drive a strategic vision of community focused, inclusive growth and prosperity. Nicole led systemic change on climate change adaption, biodiversity, flood risk management, transport policy, planning and green spaces. Nicole previously spent over a decade at Stirling Council leading strategic environmental and infrastructure programmes and has worked across West Lothian, East Dunbartonshire and Argyll & Bute Councils. She is a Board Member of Climate Ready Clyde, working with industry and government, and Chair of the Glasgow City Region Transport Portfolio leading strategic transport visioning. A Chartered civil engineer and University of Strathclyde graduate, Nicole is a member of 7 Lochs Wetland Park and previously the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative.

Elaine Parkes (presenter)

Performance Manager, Glasgow City Council

Elaine Parkes has been working in the field of performance and data management since 2006, starting her career in Strathclyde Police now Police Scotland, thereafter Community Safety Glasgow, and has been in her current position with Glasgow City Council since 2019. In her current role she is responsible for managing a team of 22 officers who provide support in relation to strategic planning, performance and business insight, auditing, data, and information management.

Stephen Egan (presenter)

Head of Service – Parks and Streetscene, Glasgow City Council

Stephen Egan has worked with Glasgow for some 20 years and held a number of senior positions within the City Council’s Operational Delivery Teams including Parks, Roads, Refuse Collection and Street Cleansing.  In his current role he is lead officer for Parks and Open Spaces, Bereavement Services and Street Cleansing and has a team of some 750 staff delivering these important services across the City.

Brian Rae (presenter)

Survey and Data Coordinator, Keep Scotland Beautiful

Brian joined Keep Scotland Beautiful in 2006.  He has a committed approach to working in the environmental sector and has managed a variety of data streams – including LEAMS, coastal environmental quality data, trunk road service station quality audit data, and data from bespoke Nudge behaviour change projects. Brian has built and managed data capture/querying/reporting systems with efficiency and ease of use in mind, while allowing for complex hypothesis testing. Brian has developed and coordinated the LEAMS programme, working in partnership with all 32 local authorities, building and maintaining relationships as the needs for street cleanliness monitoring evolved. He has been involved in developing a standardised methodology for monitoring litter across Europe with the Clean Europe Network and is working with Zero Waste Scotland to develop Litter Monitoring System (LMS). Brian has an Honours Degree in Environmental Science, majoring in applied GIS.

Alice Caldwell (presenter)

Policy Officer - Circular Economy Division, Scottish Government

Alice joined the Scottish Government in 2019 and has worked in a variety of roles including community led local development programme support, business management and circular economy policy. Her current role focusses on waste prevention policy and the implementation of the new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy.

Scott Edgar (presenter)

Research Manager, Diffley

Scott joined the Diffley Partnership in June 2022 as Research Manager. He is an experienced research and evaluation professional with a history of working in the public sector and with public sector clients across the UK. 

Scott has significant experience of working on a wide range of quantitative research projects. He has worked on large-scale complex quantitative studies such as the Scottish Health Survey, English Housing Survey and the Electoral Commission’s Accuracy and Completeness study which assesses the rate of electoral registration across the UK.

During his time at the Diffley Partnership he has worked with a range of clients including Zero Waste Scotland, the Robertson Trust, Scottish Government and Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity.

He is passionate about generating high quality insights to develop and evaluate policy. He is a skilled report writer who thrives off producing engaging research reports to provide clear recommendations and actions for clients. He is also a confident communicator and engaging presenter with vast experience of presenting research findings to a variety of audiences throughout his career.

David Lansberg (presenter)

Founder, LitterLotto

Lynn Black (workshop 1)

Constable National Rural and Acquisitive Crime Unit, Police Scotland/ SPARC

19 years’ service in Lothian and Scottish Borders Police and then Police Scotland. During those 19 years’ service I have been a response officer in East Lothian covering Dunbar, Haddington, North Berwick and Musselburgh areas and also in Midlothian where I covered Loanhead, Penicuik, Bonnyrigg and Dalkeith areas. I then was a community beat officer in Haddington before taking on the role of Local Authority Liaison Officer for East Lothian which I did before my current role in the Police Scotland National Rural and Acquisitive Crime Unit, covering all rural crime matters on a national basis. I am joined my colleague PC Jamie Stewart, based in Inverness, dealing with rural crime, and I am based in Dunbar, East Lothian. I am passionate about my job and the service we give to our rural communities and have been in role for two years.

Sally McConville (workshop 2)

Environment Assistant, Dundee City Council

Sally joined the Environmental Management section of Dundee City Council in 2015 in the role of Environment Assistant and works on a variety of projects to help develop high quality green and open spaces and encourage community participation in environmental activities. Areas of work include supporting the council’s Take Pride in Your City campaign and a range of Keep Scotland Beautiful initiatives such as Beautiful Scotland, Green Flag Awards, Clean Up Scotland and Scotland’s Beach Awards.

Ceri Hassall (workshop 3)

Assistant Waste Strategy Co-ordinator, Falkirk Council

Worked at Falkirk Council for 10 years within the Waste Strategy team, previously working for a local authority in England. My role is to assist with the development of future waste, recycling and litter prevention activities at Falkirk Council and delivering the requirements of national policy at a local level.

Ella Gorman (workshop 3)

Education Enforcement Officer, Falkirk Council

My role is to support the Litter Strategy in terms of education and communication to encourage personality responsibility of waste issues. I have been with Falkirk Council for 2 and a half years and my day to day job includes developing litter and waste education, designing campaign materials and progressing waste and litter prevention.

Laura Watson (workshop 4)

Campaigns Officer - Clean Up Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful

Laura joined Keep Scotland Beautiful in May 2022 as Campaigns Officer for Clean Up Scotland. Before joining, Laura worked in a variety of roles in conservation and the environment. This includes research roles covering the South Adriatic Sea and Wales, community engagement projects in the UK and marine environmental consulting in the Highlands.

Laura has BSc Honours in Applied Animal Science from Scotland’s Rural University and College and a MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from Edinburgh Napier University.

Laura loves the outdoors and enjoys paddleboarding, surfing and open water swimming. She is a trained British Divers Marine Life Rescue Medic and is involved with numerous citizen science projects including WWF – Walrus from Space, and the Humpback Whale Archive project with the Alaska Whale Foundation.