Andy Kerr, Chair

Andy Kerr is a motivated and experienced professional with an interesting career history, from local government to Scottish Government, taking in on the way the setting up of various social enterprises, working as a business consultant and working at senior levels in the private, public and third sectors.

Andy is the Chief Operating Officer of the Piper Group and former CEO of Sense Scotland, a charity and social enterprise with its roots in working with and supporting the deafblind community in Scotland.  The Piper Group is an innovative charity launched in order to accelerate change in improving the lives of disabled people and the dedicated staff who care for them.  The Piper Group delivers and shares the costs of innovation, leadership, digital, property, procurement, ICT, HR, finance, legal, and project management, within an overarching Group structure. This means each member charity can reach even more disabled people throughout Scotland, and can invest more in the staff teams who provide excellent quality care and support.

Andy as Chair of Quality Scotland is enthused by the opportunity to play an influential role in the continuing journey of making excellence a national characteristic of Scotland and his whole working career has in some way or another been connected to his own personal journey towards excellence and quality in the organisations that he has worked in as a quality practitioner, as an advocate and as a senior decision maker.

Andy served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament for East Kilbride from 1999 until 2011, and in that time was the Convenor of the Transport and Environment Committee, Finance and Public Services Minister and latterly Health Minister, during which time the NHS achieved the lowest waiting times in the history of NHS Scotland and the first ban on smoking in public places in the UK was introduced.

Andy is married to Susan, has three grown up daughters and enjoys football (mostly watching), running and cycling as well as food!