About us

Basic Income Network Scotland’s mission is “to advance research and public education about the economic and social effects of Citizen’s Basic Income systems (defined here as schemes which guarantee an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to every citizen as a right of citizenship).”

Our aim is to educate the general public, opinion-formers and decision makers about the potential desirability and feasibility of basic income schemes. Although the concept is simple, implementation is quite complex and technical. There is no one optimum Citizen’s Basic Income scheme. However, the better informed the public, the more likely they are to persuade decision-makers to establish a suitable basic income scheme for the benefit of everyone.

One of our aims is to build a network of advocates across Scotland to enable them to promote basic income to others and build a movement to influence relevant public policy. If you would like to help us achieve this please, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or email team@cbin.scot with any enquiries.

We also have a mailing list – sign up here via Action Network

If you would like to help us raise the profile of basic income in Scotland please get in touch.

Don’t have the time but want to give to the cause? You can donate to Basic Income Network Scotland by clicking the button below.

Basic Income Network Scotland is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC046356. We were awarded charity status on 22nd February 2016 and are currently run by a board of ten Trustees, listed below:

• Mike Danson, Chairperson
• Sam Shand, Treasurer
• Lena Swedlow, Secretary
• Timothea Armour
• Annie Miller
• Jack Scott
• Anna Selwood
• Alex Thornburn
• Colette Walker
• Craig Dalzell

Mike Danson – Chair

Mike Danson is Chair of Basic Income Network Scotland, an economist, Professor Emeritus of Enterprise Policy at Heriot-Watt University and a visiting Professor of Economics at the Centre for Energy Policy at the University of Strathclyde. He is a former Board member of Stòras Uist, is Vice Chair of the Jimmy Reid Foundation, Chair of Strathnairn Development Company, Vice Chair of Strathnairn Heritage Association, Vice Chair of Community Renewal Trust, and Board member of DTAS, Societi, Rom Romeha and CFA/Funerals.scot. He has researched and written on a wide range of economic development, poverty and policy issues, and advised local, national and international governments, agencies and other organisations for over 50 years. With 17 books, over 300 papers and official reports, he is a well-known commentator on a diverse range of themes including community resilience, the economic impact of minority languages, microbreweries, early onset dementia, rural and peripheral Europe.

Sam Shand – Treasurer

Lena Swedlow – Secretary

Lena is a campaigner. From 2021-2024, she worked at Basic Income Conversation on their campaigns, coordinating their community consultation on basic income pilot proposals, and was the co-secretariat of the Cross-Party Parliamentary and Local Government working group on basic income. She is currently supporting the Scottish BI4Artists Conversations with Anna Selwood and Cleo Goodman, and works at Compass.

Annie Miller

Retired academic economist, lecturer, author, basic Income advocate, Annie Miller was a co-founding member in 1984 of what is now the charity, Citizen’s Basic Income Trust (CBIT), and also of the Basic Income European/Earth Network (BIEN) in 1986. She also co-founded the Basic Income Network Scotland in 2016. Her main interests are: Defining basic income; Basic income and women; Basic income, work incentives and labour supply; Designing and costing BI schemes for the UK and for a fully fiscally-devolved Scotland. She is the author of A Basic Income Handbook (2017), A Basic Income Pocketbook (2020) and Essentials of Basic Income (2020), Edinburgh: Luath Press.

Jack Scott

Jack works in higher education and has an academic background in politics and political communication. He is deeply interested in the radical and transformative potential of Basic Income as a means to exit our present political reality, and has carried out research on policy advocacy using the Basic Income movement as a case study. Jack presently writes the BINS newsletter and contributes to the blog.

Anna Selwood

Colette Walker

Registered Blind Guide Dog Owner | Disability Rights Activist | Political Party Founder & Leader | Unpaid Carer

Colette’s commitment to social justice and economic fairness is rooted in deeply personal experience. As a registered blind guide dog owner and unpaid carer to her son – who is totally blind, profoundly autistic, and born 11 weeks early at just 2lb – she has navigated the complex challenges of balancing care responsibilities with relentless advocacy for the support and accessibility he needs. For years, the financial strain of unpaid care work weighed heavily on her and she knows firsthand how a basic income system could have provided vital stability and reduced the stress of making ends meet.

This journey sparked over 20 years of campaigning for equality, accessibility, and human rights. Her work extends across Scotland’s political and voluntary sectors: she engages with cross-party groups at Holyrood, has co-chaired a policy group at Sight Scotland for three years, and serves on the Guide Dogs Advisory Board. As founder and leader of a political party, she brings both grassroots insight and strategic vision to systemic change efforts.

Through decades of advocacy and her lived experience as a carer, Colette has witnessed how vulnerability is inextricably linked to financial insecurity, with working poverty growing and emerging technologies like AI putting more livelihoods at risk. She believes a basic income system is not just a solution for today’s challenges, but a vital foundation for a fairer, more resilient society that values care work and protects all its members.

Craig Dalzell

Alex Thorburn

Timothea Armour