Blair Jenkins

Blair Jenkins
Born	January 1957 Elgin, Moray, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Education	Elgin Academy; University of Edinburgh (MA, English language and literature)
Occupation	Journalist, broadcasting executive, campaign director
Company	Yes Scotland
Title	Chief executive, Yes Scotland (2012 to 2014)
Spouse	Carol Sinclair
Children	3

Charles Blair Jenkins (born January 1957), known as Blair Jenkins, is a Scottish journalist and broadcasting executive who was chief executive of Yes Scotland, the organisation that campaigned for a "Yes" vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Before entering politics in 2012 he spent more than 30 years in news and television, as director of broadcasting at Scottish Television (STV) and as head of news and current affairs at both STV and BBC Scotland.

Born and raised in Elgin, Jenkins left school at 16 to work as a reporter on the Evening Express in Aberdeen and was named Young Journalist of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards in 1977. After taking a first-class degree in English at the University of Edinburgh, he joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1980, moved to Scottish Television in 1986 and returned to the BBC as head of news and current affairs at BBC Scotland, a post he held for six years before resigning in July 2006.

From 2007 to 2008 Jenkins chaired the Scottish Broadcasting Commission, set up by First Minister Alex Salmond, whose principal recommendation was a publicly funded Scottish digital television network. He then chaired the Scottish Digital Network Panel, which in January 2011 recommended that the proposed network be paid for from the television licence fee. He was appointed an OBE for services to broadcasting in 2010.

Jenkins had never been a member of a political party when he was named chief executive of Yes Scotland in June 2012. He led the campaign for the following two years, describing it in 2014 as the "biggest grassroots movement in Scottish political history". Scotland voted against independence on September 18, 2014, by 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent.

As of October 2026 Jenkins remains a registered director of Yes Scotland Limited, the company behind the campaign, which has been inactive since 2014. In July 2026 Police Scotland assessed a complaint about the company's finances, and in October 2026 it said it had found nothing that warranted further investigation.

Early life and education

Jenkins was born in Elgin, Moray, in 1957. Companies House records give his date of birth as January 1957. His father was a meat grader. His mother looked after the family's three sons and went back to work as a secretary when her husband became ill. Speaking to The Herald in 2012, Jenkins described the family as "just regular people" living on a council estate where money was tight, and called it a "good, solid family".

He went to Elgin Academy. According to The Herald, the school let him sit his Highers early, and he started work in journalism at 16. He had been a keen football fan and, knowing he was not good enough to play professionally, hoped to be paid to write about matches. In the event he never covered sport.

After three years as a newspaper reporter, Jenkins decided he needed "more of a hinterland", as The Herald put it, and went to the University of Edinburgh to read English. He graduated MA with first-class honours in English language and literature.

Career

Evening Express, Aberdeen

Jenkins started his career as a reporter on the Evening Express in Aberdeen, where he worked for three years. In 1977 the Scottish Press Awards named him Young Journalist of the Year.

BBC News trainee and producer, 1980 to 1986

After university Jenkins applied to the BBC's news trainee scheme and joined the corporation in 1980. The Herald reported that he was one of six trainees chosen from 1,500 applicants, the only one who had not been to Oxford or Cambridge, and the only Scot. He later recalled that Broadcasting House in London had felt like "the hub of the universe". In 2012 he said: "I've had my differences with the BBC over the years but I never lose sight of the fact it's a marvellous institution."

In London he worked as a producer on the Nine O'Clock News. In 1984 he returned to Glasgow to produce the BBC's Scottish news programme Reporting Scotland.

Scottish Television, 1986 to about 2000

Jenkins joined Scottish Television in 1986. He became the station's head of news and current affairs and, in his later years there, its director of broadcasting. Companies House records show him as a director of the broadcaster's production subsidiary, then called Scottish Television Enterprises Limited and now STV Studios Limited, from November 1, 1994, to December 31, 1997. The Daily Telegraph later summed up this part of his career as a move from BBC News in London to Scottish Television, followed by "stints as STV's director of broadcasting and BBC Scotland's head of news and current affairs".

BBC Scotland, head of news and current affairs, about 2000 to 2006

Jenkins went back to the BBC as head of news and current affairs at BBC Scotland, the department responsible for the corporation's journalism in Scotland on television, radio and online. When he resigned in July 2006, BBC News reported that he had held the post for six years.

In his resignation statement to staff on July 12, 2006, Jenkins, then 49, called his decision "very difficult" and pointed to the department's work: European and UK awards for Frontline Scotland, Reporting Scotland and Newsnight Scotland, the best audiences in a decade for Good Morning Scotland, and a Scottish news website that he said "leads the BBC in much of its content and thinking". BBC News reported that staff in the Glasgow newsroom applauded after his statement. BBC Scotland's controller, Ken MacQuarrie, said Jenkins had "led news and current affairs confidently into the digital future" and that "we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude". Jenkins said he would leave at the end of August 2006. Alasdair MacLeod, executive editor of political programmes, took over the department on an acting basis.

Jenkins did not give a public reason at the time, but the resignation came during a dispute over budget cuts. Peter Murray of the National Union of Journalists called it "one of the most significant resignations at the BBC since the end of the Hutton affair" and said it "must be seen in the context of the growing anger among staff over the continuing job cuts, threats of compulsory redundancies and the BBC's attack on the staff pension scheme". Murray linked the changes in the department to Director General Mark Thompson's "attack on jobs and programme budgets across the BBC". BBC Scotland staff had held a 24-hour strike over the cuts in 2005. The trade publication Broadcast reported that Jenkins had quit in what was "understood to be a protest over the ongoing job cuts within his department".

Jenkins gave his own account in 2012. He told The Herald that he had been told to cut 25 percent from his budget, spent six months trying to persuade BBC management in London to change its mind, and resigned when it would not. He said he then resolved that whatever he did next would be "important and interesting".

Scottish Broadcasting Commission, 2007 to 2008

On August 8, 2007, First Minister Alex Salmond announced a commission to examine Scottish broadcasting and named Jenkins as its chair. Salmond wanted broadcasting powers devolved from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament. The Scotland Office minister David Cairns called the idea of a "Scottish Broadcasting Corporation" a "backward-looking proposal". The commission had a provisional budget of £500,000. Jenkins received a daily allowance of £387, matched to the rate paid to the chair of the previous administration's cultural commission, and the other nine members were unpaid. Scottish Labour's culture spokesman, Malcolm Chisholm, criticised the spending because broadcasting was reserved to Westminster.

The other commissioners included Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, former First Minister Henry McLeish, Baroness Michie of Gallanach, the playwright Chris Ballance, former BBC National Governor Norman Drummond, the actress Elaine C. Smith, Glasgow School of Art director Seona Reid, the entrepreneur David Wightman and the film-maker Murray Grigor. Jenkins said: "The aim was to have a blend of industry experience, a broad range of political views and proven analytical skills."

The commission first met on October 26, 2007. Jenkins said that its first task would be the economic development of the industry and that the question of which parliament should hold broadcasting powers would not be considered in the early stages. "More than 50 years into the television age, we have never stood back and reviewed television and broadcasting in Scotland and I think it is about time that we did," he told BBC Radio Scotland. He also said the commission would look at whether the BBC's planned efficiency savings would affect programmes in Scotland. Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament's culture committee in November 2007, Jenkins said that ITV's Michael Grade and the BBC's Mark Thompson had been wrong to suggest a lack of talent in Scotland. He blamed the "highly centralised" commissioning of programmes in London: "If nothing else, it is just more convenient to commission from the guy in the corner than the guy in Aberdeen." He also called the "Scottish Six" label for a Scottish evening news programme "no longer a helpful label", because it had become "totemic", and suggested the dispute might best be settled by giving viewers a choice.

The commission published several interim reports during 2008. The first, in January, said that "business as usual will not do". It found that television production in Scotland had employed 2,350 people and been worth more than £111 million in 2006, and cited Ofcom figures showing network production in Scotland falling from six percent of the UK total in 2004 to three percent in 2006. Published transcripts of the evidence sessions included Grade's remark that "the brutal truth is that the ideas aren't here". A March report on the cultural role of broadcasting, based on a survey of more than 1,000 people, found that 82 percent would support a new Scottish digital channel and 84 percent wanted Scotland's competitive football internationals shown live on free-to-air television. Jenkins said Scottish content made up five percent of the BBC One and BBC Two schedules in Scotland, adding: "People didn't feel the full diversity of life in Scotland was being reflected in their programmes." Donalda MacKinnon, BBC Scotland's head of programmes, called the report "very selective". In May the commission reported concerns about "a lack of breadth in reporting and a lack of depth" in Scottish broadcast journalism. In June it published a consultation with 290 young people carried out through the Scottish Youth Parliament.

The final report, published on September 8, 2008, made 22 recommendations. Its main proposal was a not-for-profit Scottish digital network, with an annual budget of £50 million to £75 million, to fill what it called a "missing piece of the public service jigsaw". The report did not say where the money should come from. It also proposed that the BBC and Channel 4 commission 8.6 percent of their network programmes from Scotland, in line with Scotland's population share, that some broadcasting responsibilities be devolved, and that legislative power over broadcasting stay with the UK government. Salmond called it "a major challenge to the Westminster Government and the broadcasters", and Cairns backed its "underlying principle" that Scottish broadcasting should stay part of UK broadcasting. At Holyrood's education and culture committee on September 24, 2008, Jenkins described the report as unanimous. Asked whether the 8.6 percent target was too timid, he said it was "very much a floor and not a ceiling" and "certainly not the summit of my ambition".

Scottish Digital Network Panel, 2010 to 2011

In September 2010 the Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop, appointed Jenkins to chair an independent panel on how to set up and fund the Scottish digital network the commission had proposed. The other members were the former Herald editor Charles McGhee, the investment director Judith Mackenzie, the Stirling University media professor Neil Blain and David Wightman, who had served on the commission.

The panel reported on January 24, 2011. It put the annual cost of the network at £75 million, about two percent of licence fee revenue, and recommended that it be funded by "an allocation from the television licence fee". It ruled out advertising, saying that advertising revenue would most likely come "at the expense of other Scottish media". It also criticised the licence fee settlement the UK government and the BBC had agreed in autumn 2010 as "determined in haste in private meetings". Jenkins said the report was a route map for delivering the service: "We hope that both the momentum and the consensus can be maintained for this transformation of Scottish broadcasting." The BBC said it had no plans to reopen the licence fee settlement.

Carnegie UK Trust, Strathclyde and other work, 2008 to 2012

Jenkins became a fellow of the Carnegie UK Trust and a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Strathclyde. As a Carnegie fellow he wrote Better Journalism in the Digital Age, a paper published in early 2012 while the Leveson Inquiry into press standards was under way. The paper was submitted to the inquiry as evidence. It argued that "tougher regulation on its own is not enough" and that the public interest "also requires positive actions in support of good journalism".

The paper made seven recommendations. They included a single code of conduct for all journalists and news organisations, maintaining or strengthening public service broadcasting, funding from civil society organisations for new journalism initiatives, more emphasis on ethics in journalism training, universal high-speed broadband, and more public debate on media ethics. On regulation, it called for an independent press regulator, free of both government and the newspaper industry, that would operate without statute. Newspapers and digital news services would register voluntarily, and the main incentive to join would be the press accreditation that gives journalists privileged access to venues, events and people. Jenkins also wrote on the subject for HuffPost UK in April and May 2012, including a piece titled "Leveson Inquiry and Restoring Public Faith in Journalism".

Over the same period Jenkins was a governor of Glasgow School of Art. Companies House records show him as a director of the school from December 8, 2008, to July 31, 2012.

Yes Scotland, 2012 to 2014

Appointment

Yes Scotland Limited was incorporated on April 25, 2012, and the campaign was launched at a Cineworld cinema in Edinburgh on May 25, 2012. Jenkins was one of the supporters who declared for independence at the launch, alongside Sean Connery, Liz Lochhead, Pat Kane and Brian Cox. The Herald reported that even the Scottish Government ministers John Swinney and Mike Russell had not known of his views or his appearance until they saw him on stage, and compared the effect on Scotland's media world to Rangers signing Mo Johnston. Jenkins said: "I'd never expressed a political view on anything publicly, so walking on to the stage at that cinema to declare in two minutes why you were going to support this, I was well out of my comfort zone."

He was named chief executive on June 28, 2012, and Companies House records his appointment as a director of Yes Scotland Limited from June 27, 2012. The former Labour MP Dennis Canavan was named chair of the advisory board at the same time. Jenkins said: "For more than 30 years, my professional life has been about impartial journalism. I'm not a member of any party and I've never engaged in any form of political activity, but this is just too important." He promised a campaign run with "passion, discipline and integrity", based in Glasgow and "represented and supported by people from across the political spectrum and none", and said he hoped for a debate "free from Punch 'n' Judy confrontations". He gave up his other commitments to work on the campaign. Scottish Labour called the appointment "the first relaunch of the separation campaign". He stood down as a Glasgow School of Art director on July 31, 2012.

Early campaign

The Sunday Herald described Jenkins's first press encounter after the launch as a "mauling", with reporters pressing for details of an independent Scotland. In August 2012 he told The Herald that his personal view was that an independent Scotland should probably stay in NATO, but that the question was "not a decision for 2014". He took the same position on the currency, arguing that the referendum was about the principle that the people of Scotland should take decisions about Scotland, and that policy choices would follow at later elections. He said Yes Scotland would campaign only for independence and would not become a vehicle for more limited devolution: "At no point will Yes Scotland be morphing into Yes for Devo Plus or Yes for Devo Max."

Jenkins also rejected the suggestion that Salmond controlled the campaign: "I don't report to Alex Salmond, that's not the arrangement at all." He described a good working relationship with the First Minister, despite past arguments: "I've probably fallen out with him over the years more than any other politician, not for any bad reason, for perfectly valid reasons. I was running newsrooms and he was the leader of a political party." He said that during his time at the Scottish Broadcasting Commission Salmond had kept his word on the inquiry's independence, and that this had mattered when he considered the Yes Scotland job.

In the summer of 2012 a YouGov poll for the Fabian Society put support for independence at 30 percent and opposition at 54 percent. The Herald reported that the launch period, including the cinema event, had been paid for from the bequest of the poet Edwin Morgan and from donations by the EuroMillions winners Chris and Colin Weir, all SNP supporters. Jenkins said he wanted the campaign to be paid for by individual supporters "as quickly as possible". He had advertised four executive posts, planned a Glasgow office and was aiming for one million signatures on the Yes declaration.

One early task was bringing the Scottish Greens back on board. Their co-convener, Patrick Harvie, had spoken at the launch but then distanced the party from the campaign. The Greens voted to take full part in Yes Scotland at their conference on October 6, 2012, after Harvie said the organisation was no longer dominated by the SNP. Jenkins said it was "another tremendous boost as we continue to build the largest community-based campaign in Scotland's history".

Building the campaign, 2013

In February 2013 Severin Carrell of The Guardian interviewed Jenkins at the campaign's open-plan office in Hope Street, central Glasgow. Polls then showed a gap of 15 points or more between the two sides. Asked for one word to describe the task, Jenkins said "achievable". He argued that up to half the population was still undecided and that the polls would tighten during the year. The Yes declaration had passed 143,000 signatures in November 2012. Yes Scotland employed 17 full-time staff, including the media consultants Ian McKerron and Gordon Hay, who had worked on Ruth Davidson's campaign for the Scottish Conservative leadership in 2011.

Jenkins told Carrell that Yes Scotland had been self-financing within about four to six weeks of his arrival, and that it was "very important to me that there's a distinction made between the SNP and Yes Scotland". He said the campaign would not accept donations above £500 from anyone who was not a Scottish resident voter, and that donors of more than £7,500 were told their names would be published. In January 2013 he had written to Alistair Darling, chairman of Better Together, proposing a joint policy on when donors would be disclosed. Darling had not replied, and Jenkins said Yes Scotland would not publish first: "From our side, why would we release information which they're not prepared to release?" The Guardian piece also noted that Jenkins had recently spoken in favour of Scandinavian-style high taxes to pay for welfare and public services, while he said he also spoke to many business people who backed independence on a low-tax model.

Referendum campaign, 2014

At Glasgow University on May 29, 2014, the eve of the official referendum period, Jenkins said: "We now have the biggest grassroots movement in Scottish political history with hundreds of local groups and tens of thousands of active volunteers." He argued that a Yes vote would help create a "fairer, more progressive, peaceful and reforming Scotland", accused the pro-union side of running "Project Fear" and said: "Yes is the creative option, the option with imagination." Under the rules for the regulated period, each side could spend up to £1.5 million.

In a profile of the four main back-room figures on the two sides, published a week before the vote, The Daily Telegraph wrote that there had been "raised eyebrows from many" when the "softly spoken former broadcast executive" was appointed. It said Jenkins had become a constant presence in the media, had kept the SNP's pro-independence partners on side, including the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Socialists and "some breakaway Labour figures", and had concentrated on a grassroots movement that engaged people "street-by-street and conversation-by-conversation".

The referendum took place on September 18, 2014. "No" won with 2,001,926 votes (55.3 percent) to 1,617,989 for "Yes" (44.7 percent). Figures published by the Electoral Commission showed that Yes Scotland received donations of more than £2.6 million and spent more than £1.4 million during the campaign. Better Together received almost £3.7 million and also spent more than £1.4 million.

After the referendum

Yes Scotland Limited has not been active since 2014 and has filed dormant accounts showing a zero balance. Jenkins has remained a director since 2012. As of October 2026 the Companies House register lists the company as active, with a proposal to strike it off the register in progress.

Leadership and management style

Jenkins's own statements put impartiality and principle at the centre of his career. When he joined Yes Scotland he said that his professional life for more than 30 years had been about "impartial journalism", and The Herald described his mantra in journalism as "impartiality, impartiality, impartiality". He described a "simple code" for decisions: "You do the right things for the right reasons. If you do that things have a way of working out." He linked his resignation from the BBC in 2006 and his move to Yes Scotland in 2012 to that code, saying of the referendum: "This is the only issue and this is the only campaign for me. This is the only time I'll be doing this."

At BBC Scotland, his controller credited him with leading the news department "confidently into the digital future" and keeping it "the standard bearer and leader for news, political coverage and current affairs across Scotland". At the Scottish Broadcasting Commission he moved first on the economics of the industry and left the constitutional question of broadcasting powers until later. He also agreed with officials that the commission would work to a faster timetable than its predecessor, and they expected it to spend less than its £500,000 budget.

At Yes Scotland he stressed the campaign's separation from the SNP, insisted on self-financing, and built a cross-party coalition while personally avoiding firm positions on policy questions such as NATO and currency. Interviewers also noted the limits of this approach. Alison Rowat of The Herald compared his answers on NATO and sterling to "a caterpillar changing into a butterfly", and Carrell called his position on disclosing donors "convoluted".

Board memberships and outside roles

• Director, Scottish Television Enterprises Limited (now STV Studios Limited), November 1, 1994, to December 31, 1997
• Director, Dawn Chorus (Holdings), December 2, 1994, to December 31, 1997
• Chairman of BAFTA Scotland for five years, according to BBC News in 2006. Companies House lists him as a director of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts from July 1, 2002, to July 5, 2004.
• Chair, Scottish Broadcasting Commission, 2007 to 2008
• Director and governor, Glasgow School of Art, December 8, 2008, to July 31, 2012
• Chair, Scottish Digital Network Panel, 2010 to 2011
• Fellow, Carnegie UK Trust
• Visiting professor of journalism, University of Strathclyde
• Director, Yes Scotland Limited, since June 27, 2012

Controversies

2026 police assessment of Yes Scotland finances

On July 5, 2026, the Sunday Mail reported a complaint to Police Scotland claiming it was not known how more than £1.5 million of Yes Scotland's income had been spent. BBC News reported that the complaint came from David Henry, one of the people whose concerns about SNP finances had led to the Operation Branchform investigation, which ended with the conviction of the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party. Henry said the company's accounts from 2016 onwards showed a zero balance and that £1.5 million recorded earlier appeared to have "just gone". Yes Scotland said all the money was accounted for, that there had been no wrongdoing and that Murrell had no access to its bank accounts. It referred BBC Scotland to the audited referendum returns. The SNP said Yes Scotland Ltd had been an "entirely separate organisation". Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives called for the allegations to be investigated.

Jenkins's solicitor, Aamer Anwar, said the claim of £1.5 million "missing" from the 2013 accounts rested on "a very basic misunderstanding of accounts", and described what followed as "a desperate attempt to link Peter Murrell's criminal conduct to the financial affairs of Yes Scotland Ltd". In mid-July 2026 a post on the dormant Yes Scotland account on X joked that the money "must have been in the sofa given to a recycling charity after the referendum". Anwar said Jenkins had believed the account was closed about 12 years earlier and that the post was made "without the knowledge or approval of Mr Jenkins". He said the allegations had caused "extreme anger and distress for Mr Jenkins and his family" and that Jenkins "does not regard such allegations as a laughing matter".

Yes Scotland gave its full accounts to the police in July 2026. On October 23, 2026, Anwar said Police Scotland's cybercrime and fraud unit had finished its assessment of the finances of Yes Scotland and of Jenkins, had "not identified any criminality", and was not investigating further. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "We received information which was assessed and nothing was identified which would warrant further investigation." Anwar said Jenkins was grateful to the police but sorry that they had been "forced to waste valuable resources and time on such spurious and unfounded allegations".

Personal life

In 2012 The Herald reported that Jenkins was married to Carol Sinclair, a director of a digital media training body, and that he had three daughters, then in their 20s, from his first marriage. One was a teacher in Nottingham, one worked in television production, and the youngest was in Australia on a work and travel visa. He lived on Glasgow's south side. He has said he was a keen football fan from childhood.

Recognition

• 1977: Young Journalist of the Year, Scottish Press Awards
• 2010: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to broadcasting, Queen's Birthday Honours

See also

• 2014 Scottish independence referendum
• Alex Salmond
• Dennis Canavan
• Blair McDougall

External links

• Charles Blair Jenkins, Companies House officer record