After long periods without a director, the Scottish Catholic aid agency, Sciaf, is hoping to fill the vacancy this spring with the help of lay expertise. The long-serving director, Paul Chitnis, abruptly left in 2011 and his successor, Patricia Chale, departed after a mere five months in the post last May. Now Sciaf has advertised the top job again and has largely entrusted recruitment to two lay Catholics appointed to the board of directors: Professor Jim Gallagher, a former senior civil servant, now research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and visiting professor of government at Glasgow University; and Professor Mike Mannion, vice principal of Glasgow Caledonian University. They will be joined on the interview panel by the former secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, Lesley-