SCDC Team
David Allan – Deputy Director
David has an extensive background in community work and spent 17 years in community development practitioner and manager roles in the West of Scotland before joining SCDC in 2001. Since then he has undertaken various roles within the organisation including community health training manager and Head of Programme with particular responsibility for community engagement, community capacity building and the training/consultancy function of SCDC.
David is now Deputy Director with SCDC, has overall responsibility for programme development and management, and a particular focus on the research and learning functions of the organisation. Programmes that he has been involved in over the past 10 years include Better Community Engagement, Rural Ayrshire 21, Argyll & Bute Community Action Planning toolkit, the revision of the National Standards for Community Engagement, and the Supporting Communities Programme. He is currently involved in managing the Knowledge is Power community action research programme and led on the Rapid Evaluation of the RRR Fund for Foundation Scotland.
Paul Nelis – Development Manager
Paul has an extensive background in community development through his work for Greater Easterhouse Social Inclusion Partnership and Scottish Enterprise (Glasgow & Ayrshire) before joining Scottish Community Development Centre. With over 20 years experience of working with communities he has a particular interest in participatory budgeting, community research, community-led health improvement, community engagement (planning & methods), strategic planning and evaluation.
Paul is currently Development Manager responsible for the development and delivery of a range of national and local programmes including the continued progression of the National Standards for Community Engagement, the online community engagement tool (VOiCE), Participatory Budgeting, the online planning and evaluation tool (LEAP) and delivery of SCDC’s Supporting Communities Programme (part of the Scottish Government’s Strengthening Communities Programme) which involves capacity-building across Scotland including materials development, networking support, strategic planning, practice development and training for trainers.
Community Enterprise Team
Douglas Westwater – CEO
Douglas has run Community Enterprise for 14 years and has always combined his role as chief officer with a portfolio of projects which ensures he is up to date with grass roots issues while being able to contribute a strategic perspective where required. Douglas has worked in the enterprising third sector and with social enterprises in Scotland for over 25 years and worked in England and in Africa before that. Douglas is involved at a national strategy level having been a founding member of Social Enterprise Scotland, founding subscriber of the Voluntary Code for Social Enterprise and a member of the national Social Enterprise Reference Group. Much of his experience has been in community regeneration, including both urban and rural with a particularly interest in areas of industrial decline such as coalfield communities. Over recent years he has built significant experience in more remote rural areas from Shetland and the Western Isles to the highly remote villages in the South of Scotland.
His particular specialisms are: support for community anchor organisations and community asset transfers; funding and investment; and financing and business planning.
Victoria Pearce – Development Team Manager
Following a varied career in the private sector, Victoria moved into social enterprise 15 years ago working for national intermediary organisations including Social Community Business Scotland Network, Social Enterprise Scotland and Senscot. She also worked in a freelance capacity for a number of social and charitable organisations including Assist Social Capital, the Social Audit Network and the Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network. Keen to increase contact with social enterprises on the ground, she moved to Community Enterprise in 2010. Victoria manages the team of development staff and coordinates programmes of activity including national and regional business support contracts. Alongside this, she also directly delivers a range of client-based projects to maintain a good working knowledge of community development at the coalface and has volunteered her time on voluntary boards as a director. Victoria has worked with a wide range of organisations from start up to multifaceted, well established organisations and prefers to work on a broad range of issue-based development, from employability to health.
Her particular specialisms are: social impact evaluation; feasibility and options appraisal; and community action planning.
Kylie Fagan, Research & Project Support Worker
Kylie has worked across the Scottish academic and third sectors for over 7 years on issues relating to; health and wellbeing, public participation, and rural community development. She extensive experience facilitating community consultations, action plans, feasibility studies and has supported communities throughout a range of projects, including community asset transfers and innovative rural transport and energy schemes. Much of her work has been founded in principles of participatory action research and she sees her role as a researcher as supporting organisations to critically engage with their communities, help them build capacity and take on the challenge of making themselves sustainable over the longer term.
Kylie has also contributed to a wide range of written outputs including journal articles, community appraisals, policy reports and literature reviews. She is currently undertaking a part-time PhD in Social Policy and was invited to become a Fellow of the RSA in 2018.
Her particular specialisms are: research design and analysis; and project management.