By Ian McConnell
BUSINESS economist Jo Armstrong is to take the chair at Wheatley Group, succeeding Alastair MacNish when he retires at the housing, care and property-management organisation’s annual meeting in September.
Ms Armstrong, who joined Glasgow-based Wheatley’s board in 2015 and chairs the group development committee, said: “We have supported tens of thousands of households in hardship across central and southern Scotland during the pandemic and we are determined to contribute creatively to the country’s recovery. This will involve continuing to build, maintain and invest in great affordable homes and – working with Wheatley Care and Wheatley Foundation – to improve the life opportunities of people living in our communities, wherever and whenever we can.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: We need to talk about Brexit, Douglas Ross
Wheatley noted Ms Armstrong’s professional career spanned financial services, the Scottish civil service and charitable sector.
Mr MacNish said: “Jo is a fantastic appointment and was the unanimous choice of the board.”
Wheatley provides homes and services to around 300,000 people in 19 local authority areas across Scotland and includes GHA, the nation’s largest social landlord with 40,000 affordable homes in Glasgow.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Brexit could have taken many forms. Cheshire Cat Boris Johnson chose this one
Its other housing operations include Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership, and Dunedin Canmore in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife.
Ms Armstrong is a panel member of the Competition and Markets Authority, a member of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, chair of private sector development company Hub West Scotland, and a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Directors in Scotland. Wheatley noted that, previously, Ms Armstrong was a budget adviser to two Scottish parliamentary committees, and chaired regulator Ofgem’s expert panel for its Electricity Network Innovation Fund.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here