Biography

Paul is a writer and public speaker

 

Paul has been a freelance journalist for over 30 years, specialising in writing on accountancy, personal finance, politics and economics.  Paul was a regular contributor to The Independent for more than two decades while it was a print publication and was its ‘financial agony uncle’ for 10 years - compiling its weekly Questions of Cash column, answering readers’ questions and challenging banks and other companies on behalf of readers.

He has written for most UK and Irish quality newspapers, including the Financial Times, The Times, the Sunday Times and the Irish Times. He has also contributed to a range of prestigious magazines, including the CBI and FSB membership publications. He was news editor of ACCA’s membership magazine, Accounting & Business, for many years. Paul has been editor of ModernGov magazine, a twice yearly publication examining the modernisation of Britain's public services.

·         Commended, Europartner Journalism Award, 2002.

·         Commended, Housing Journalist of the Year Awards, 1996.

·         Shortlisted, Headline Money Regional Financial Journalist of the Year, 2010.

Paul has extensive experience of writing and su-editing online content, including writing blogs for clients. For two years he was engaged by the University of Manchester as editor of its public policy blogs. He has written course material on social enterprises and co-operatives for the Open University and was part of Aston University’s team which conducted an assessment for government of town and parish councils. For several years Paul wrote an online blog on developments in the housing sector for a property developer client.

Paul is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and commercial radio station and is also a respected conference speaker, including for accountancy institutions. Paul has delivered several lectures to University of Cambridge post-graduate engineering students on problems associated with the Public Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnerships.  He has provided best practice case studies for several public sector clients, including the Audit Commission and the former East Midland Development Agency.

Commercial copywriting and copy-editing clients have included the Audit Commission, several government departments, ACCA, CIPFA, CIMA, AICPA and The Co-operative Bank. He has recorded and produced three series of podcasts for the peace and reconciliation charity, the Holywell Trust.

Paul is author of several books:

·         Changing Money

·         Financial Services in the Digital Age

·         Government in the Digital Age

·         A New Ireland

·         Lessons from the Troubles and the Unsettled Peace

·         Abuse of Trust (co-author)

Prior to becoming a freelance journalist, Paul had a varied career.  He has been an advisor to workers’ co-operatives; a civil servant; was employed as 'assistant accountant' at a hosiery factory to oversee the computerisation of its accounting function; and was a politician – he was a Labour and Co-operative Party Leicester city councillor from 1987 to 1991. Paul was employed as policy and research officer for SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin from early 2020 until her election in May 2022.

Paul has extensive experience of non-executive governance. He was the chair of Derry’s Playhouse Theatre from 2017 to 2020; has been the governor of two primary schools in Leicester; was a non-executive director of a Leicester property company on behalf of Leicester City Council; and was a founding director and company secretary of Socialist Newspaper (Publications) Ltd, publisher of Red Pepper magazine.

Paul Gosling in Italy