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A top Scottish government official resigned last week after his misuse of public funds — including $108,000 on a Harvard Business School program for one of his employees — came to light.
Donald MacRae, the Chairman of the Water Industry Commission of Scotland, had inappropriately paid for the tuition of WICS chief operating officer Michelle A. Ashford, who attended an HBS Advanced Management Program from January to May of 2023. The Times, a UK-based newspaper, first reported MacRae’s resignation.
Backlash over potential misuse of public funds at WICS first began after a public audit in December 2023 reported that “financial management and governance issues found at the Commission fall far short of what is expected of a public body.” The audit prompted the resignation of then-CEO Alan Sutherland.
A WICS spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that the agency has “made the necessary changes to our governance and controls to ensure that value for money is demonstrated for all future training.”
In an interview with The Crimson, Ashford said that she “completed all of the necessary approval paperwork.”
“It was my chief exec who signed off and signed off to payment, who didn’t seek to get government approval for it,” Ashford said.
MacRae and Sutherland did not respond to requests for comment.
Ashford, who wrote in a follow-up text that she is “currently signed off work” by her doctor, also told a Scottish government panel in May that WICS knew they were paying for her tuition.
But last month in a session with the Scottish Parliament, MacRae told members that he was “surprised” by the Harvard payment, according to The Times, adding that the board was “not presented with the proposed expenditure or even the business case.”
In a March email from Ashford to MacRae and two other top WICS officials obtained by The Crimson, Ashford wrote that she was “concerned” that the public narrative around the spending indicated she had “pressed ahead without proper authorisations.”
Ashford wrote that Sutherland, then the WICS CEO, was the one who suggested that she attend the HBS program for her professional development, and that the “sponsor team at Scottish Government were aware that I was participating in the HBS program.”
“I was aware that this expenditure had been picked up by the Audit Scotland team but was unconcerned as I had followed the processes put in place by Finance,” she wrote.
Still, Ashford maintained that spending public money for her HBS program was appropriate, saying that the course was vital to her professional development and ability to tackle “unprecedented challenges” in the water sector.
“We can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” Ashford said. “Spending £80,000 on me going to Harvard to be able to help drive forward that change, that's necessary.”
“Despite everything that’s happened, and despite this being quite possibly the worst period of my life in terms of media attention and the detriment that it’s caused, I would do it all again,” she said.
