Mr Hinds is a former Chief Executive of Fife Council and has held a number of senior public appointments since retiring in 2013.
Most recently, he served as Interim Chair of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, where he played a key role in addressing significant organisational challenges. Mr Hinds’s appointment is for one year.
“We note the appointment of a new chair. I have written to ask for an early meeting with the new chair because clearly there are a number of things we want to talk to the chair about,” Mr Hardy told The Herald.
Culture secretary Mairi McAllan announced that Mr Hinds would succeed former chair Sir Mark Jones who stood down from his role as chair of HES earlier this month after being appointed to the four-year-old last September.
He had indicated a wish to leave the organisation in April but was persuaded to remain until after the Holyrood election in May.
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Mr Hardy’s intervention comes after The Herald revealed last week that a senior manager at Historic Environment Scotland at the centre of the Martin Compston ‘twerking’ row has been sacked.
The Line Of Duty star is said to have been made uncomfortable by the alleged incident in 2023 at a corporate event at Edinburgh Castle, which was also attended by Sir Rod Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster, and which was first reported last October.
The revelation was the latest development last week at the agency which is given £74million a year by the Scottish Government to look after more than 300 historic buildings and sites including Edinburgh Castle and Linlithgow Palace.
The Herald was told by multiple sources that the manager was dismissed this month.
It is understood there is sympathy among some in the organisation for the sacked manager with The Herald being told there was a “witch hunt” against her.
One insider said the former manager, who joined HES from a retail background and helped put it on a more commercial footing is “distraught”, at the decision.
“Some people didn’t like her coming in and make them do things they would have preferred not to do. That’s why she became unpopular with a handful of folk,” a source told The Herald.
Meanwhile, an advertisement for a new chair with pay of £400 a day, who would be expected to work four days a month, was posted on the HES website earlier this month along with an advert for six board members.
It gave the closing date for applications for both the board member and chair roles as 5pm Thursday 23 July 2026.
Mr Hinds will be the third chair of HES in just over a year after his predecessor Dr Hugh Hall quit in September last year while the organisation’s chief executive Katerina Brown was on long term sick leave.
Ms Brown was later suspended before returning to work after Sir Mark’s appointment last September.
She had been under investigation after all seven HES directors submitted a grievance complaint against her. The Herald revealed that the investigation had been completed and no disciplinary action taken.
Last month, a culture and organisation review, conducted by former Dundee City Council chief executive, David Martin, recommended a significant overhaul of management at HES.
While Mr Martin praised the work of HES’s 1,600 civil servants, he added: “There is no doubt that in recent years organisational performance and strategic focus have not been well served by a combination of unproductive relationships between the HES Board and senior executives, a lack of joint visible leadership and limited collective accountability.”
A spokesman for HES said: “As Interim Chair, Ronnie will work closely with Board members, staff and the Trade Union Alliance to support the delivery of HES’s priorities and help strengthen its culture, governance and leadership.”
