Mr Charles Deguara, joined the Public Service in 1977. In 1983, he successfully completed a Business Management (Hons) degree course after which he was appointed as a human resources manager at the Water Works Department.
In 1990, his appointment as Treasury Accounting Officer represented a major shift to the area of public finance. He joined the Budget Office within the Ministry for Finance in 1992, during which he headed the expenditure section team.
Mr Deguara’s appointment as Director at the Home Affairs Ministry, in September 2000, marked another significant milestone in his career. In August 2002, he was appointed as Director General at the Land and Public Registry Division.
In May 2004, Mr Deguara was appointed as Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs which had an impressive wide portfolio, incorporating various departments and public entities. Amongst other duties, as Chairperson of the Schengen Task Force, he played a key role in Malta’s successful bid to join the Schengen zone in December 2007.
In November 2008, Mr Deguara was appointed as Deputy Auditor General at the National Audit Office, being re-confirmed in this position in June 2013.
In March 2016, Mr. Deguara was sworn in as Auditor General, being re-confirmed in this position in March 2021, with a unanimous vote in Parliament.
In 2017, he was appointed as an honorary member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) in recognition of his achievements within the public service.
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David Heald is Emeritus Professor at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, having previously held accounting chairs at Aberdeen, Sheffield and Glasgow. His research interests focus on public sector accounting reform, public expenditure management and control, public audit, infrastructure financing, and financing devolved governments. His current research relates to accounting and fiscal governance in the UK and its devolved nations and to the crisis in English local government accounting and auditing.
He has published extensively in accounting journals such as Abacus; Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal; Accounting and Business Research; European Accounting Review; Financial Accountability & Management; Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management; and Management Accounting Research. His books include Transparency: The Key to Better Governance? (2006) with Christopher Hood on the relevance of transparency to public policy; and When the Party's Over: The Politics of Fiscal Squeeze in Perspective (2014) with Christopher Hood and Rozana Himaz.
He has extensive public policy involvement. Since 2020 he has been a member of the UK Treasury’s User and Preparer Advisory Group on government financial reporting, having earlier been a member of its Financial Reporting Advisory Board (2004-09). Since 2023 he has been a member of the Scottish Government’s Advisory Group on Tax Strategy. From January 2025 he is a member of the Local Authority (Scotland) Accounts Advisory Committee which is an independent committee that develops and promotes proper accounting practice for local government in Scotland, contributing to the UK Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting. Having earlier in his career acted as specialist adviser to Parliamentary Committees of the UK House of Commons, he now submits written evidence to committees of the UK and devolved Parliaments and sometimes gives oral evidence.
He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and holds a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Accounting and Finance Association.
