Finance
Wendy Alexander 'was asked to leave' Dundee uni role claim over finance questions
PAFormer MSP Wendy Alexander claims she was asked to leave her senior post at Dundee University after asking “uncomfortable” questions about the institution’s finances, MSPs have been told.
Alexander was the university’s vice principal international for almost a decade but retired last year rather than accept what she said was the offer of a “package and trips.”
She said “cakeism, profligacy and hubris at the very top” led to “a failure to reign in expenditure” and that she “chose not to be bought off”.
She said former principal Prof Iain Gillespie, who was heavily criticised in a recent damning report into the university’s finances, “made clear” he wanted her to leave last October.
University of DundeeAlexander’s comments were made in a statement submitted to Holyrood’s education committee.
Gillespie resigned with immediate effect in December after telling staff the previous month that job losses were “inevitable”.
He is expected to give evidence in person at the committee on Thursday.
The university currently faces a £35m deficit and has said it must cut 300 jobs through a voluntary redundancy scheme.
The independent report, published last week, said university bosses and its governing body failed multiple times to identify the worsening crisis and continued to overspend instead of taking action.
In her statement, former Labour MSP Alexander said: “I personally, was progressively frozen out of meetings, my objectives changed, data withheld and when I challenged the absence/adequacy of financial information in Sept (20)24, I was then asked to leave.
“I declined the offer of overseas trips at the university’s expense to be followed by a generous settlement payment.
“Quite simply, it seemed unethical and morally wrong.”
Alexander, who now sits as a baroness at the House of Lords, said she felt “punished for speaking out” and that the university “failed to fix the roof when the sun shone”.
She said international fee income had quadrupled over eight years to 2023, but the university was “barely breaking even”.
She said that international income plateaued in 2023/24 and fell the following year.
Alexander said there was a “misguided” shift away from a “laser-like focus on international student recruitment to a new globalisation strategy”.
She added that the university “deprioritised international student recruitment when it mattered most” and left the university “poorly equipped to deal with the downturn”.
The education committee is currently hearing evidence from the university’s former director of finance Peter Fotheringham, former chief operating officer Dr Jim McGeorge, and former chair of court Amanda Millar.
Alexander submitted her evidence rather than appearing in person due to a prior family event abroad.
It was announced on Tuesday that the university will receive an extra £40m from the Scottish government as the institution continues to tackle its financial crisis.
Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said the decision would place specific conditions on the funding which will be paid over two academic years.
The university received £22m from the Scottish Funding Council in February as part of funding to support universities facing financial challenges.
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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