Sir John Elvidge, Permanent Secretary
Sir John Elvidge was appointed Permanent Secretary in July 2003.
He was educated at Oxford University (BA English) and joined The Scottish Office in 1973, working in most departments, with a particular emphasis on economic development, physical infrastructure and EU relations.
Mr Elvidge was seconded to Scottish Homes (1988-89) and the Cabinet Office (1998-99), where he worked on co-ordination of the UK Government's legislative programme and social policies.
He was Head of Education Department from May 1999 before being appointed Head of the Finance and Central Services Department in March 2002. He was knighted in the June 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours list.
He is married and his interests include sport, the arts and food and wine.
Philip Rycroft, Director-General Education
Philip Rycroft was Head of the Transport and Lifelong Learning Department (ETLLD) before taking up his current position on May 16, 2007.
Prior to that, since June 2002, Mr Rycroft was Head of Schools Group within the Education Department.
Mr Rycroft began his career in 1989 in the then Scottish Office Department of Agriculture & Fisheries. His posts have included Head of the Unit dealing with European policy in the Industry Department (the forerunner of ETLLD); a two year secondment with the European Commission, working in the cabinet of the Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan; Head of the division responsible for general agricultural and rural policy; Deputy Head of the Scottish Executive's Policy Unit; and another two year secondment as Public Affairs Manager with Scottish & Newcastle PLC.
Related topics
Education and Training
People and Society
Research
Statistics
Dr Andrew Goudie, Director-General Economy and Chief Economic Adviser
Dr Goudie completed BA, MA and PhD degrees at Cambridge University. Before joining the Scottish Office in 1990, he was Director of Cambridge Econometrics Ltd, worked at the World Bank in Washington as an economist.
In 1995 he worked as a Principal Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. In 1996 he became the Chief Economist for the Overseas Development Administration/Department for International Development. Since 1999 he has been Chief Economic Adviser to the Scottish Government.
Related topics
Economy
Government
Sustainable Development
Planning
Transport
Robert Gordon CB, Director-General Justice and Communities
Robert Gordon was educated at the Gordon Schools in Huntly and at Aberdeen University where he read Italian. He joined The Scottish Office in 1973. Early in his career he had a number of administrative postings in the Education, Industry and Development Departments.
He was Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland (George Younger and Malcolm Rifkind) in the mid-eighties. He then worked in the Agriculture Department and various central management and change and service delivery posts until May 1997 when he took charge of the Constitution Group responsible for giving effect to the Government's proposals for a Scottish Parliament.
He was promoted in December 1998 to the then new post of Head of the Executive Secretariat. He then became head of FCSD before being appointed Chief Executive of the Crown Office and Head of Legal and Parliamentary Services in March 2002. He was appointed DG of Justice in May 2007, having been head of the Justice Department since December 2004, and continues in his role as Head of Legal and Parliamentary Services. He is married with four children and lives in Edinburgh.
Related topics
Justice
Housing and Regeneration
Richard Wakeford, Director-General Environment
Richard Wakeford joined the Scottish Government at the start of 2005 from the Countryside Agency in England where he had been Chief Executive since its creation in 1999.
He was also an appointed member of the UK Sustainable Development Commission and a non-executive member of the management board of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). He remains an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.
Before joining the Countryside Commission as Chief Executive in 1996, Mr Wakeford worked in the Cabinet Office working on Cabinet minutes, economic and environmental affairs. His previous experience was mainly in the Department of the Environment working on land use, environment and water policy issues.
In 1990 he wrote a book on development control in the USA, following a year spent at Princeton University. He has also advised the Hungarian government on land use and sustainable development, under the auspices of the Know How Fund.
Related topics
Agriculture
Environment
Fisheries
Rural Development
Sustainable Development
Dr Kevin Woods, Director-General Health and Chief Executive of the NHS in Scotland
Dr Kevin Woods was previously Chief Executive of North Central London Strategic Health Authority. He was also the William R. Lindsay Professor of Health Policy and Economic Evaluation at the University of Glasgow.
He has held a number of general management positions in the English NHS, including that of Regional General Manager of the Trent Regional Health Authority.
Before joining the NHS he was a lecturer at the University of Manchester, and the Flinders University of South Australia.
Related Topic:
Health and Community Care
Sport
People and Society
Non Executive Members
The Strategic Board has three non-executive members, each appointed for a term of two years attending at least one meeting per month. Non-executive members bring independent, challenging and informed input from an external perspective to the work of the Board and in particular to the consideration of corporate management issues such as the Human Resource strategy, administration costs, monitoring of programme expenditure, training and development, relations with stakeholders - and help to drive a process of culture change and continuous improvement.
Professor Bill Bound
Professor Bill Bound was appointed a non-executive in August 2005. He is a retired senior partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers where he was a member of the board of the European Consulting Practice. He has had extensive International business experience, running large projects in over 30 countries worldwide. He was the Program Director for Big Bang and seconded as a Director of the London Stock exchange in the City of London and was a member of President Reagan's Task Force on Fraud Waste and Abuse in the USA Federal Government. He is a Director of the Ross and Cromarty Enterprise and is an Adjunct Professor at a Corporate Business School in Sydney, Australia where he lectures on business strategy subjects to MBA and Doctoral courses.
David FisherDavid Fisher joined the Halifax in 1990 as Group Remuneration and Benefits manager in Group Human Resources. The role grew to include Industrial Relations/Employee Relations.
In 1995 he became Head of HR for Halifax following its merger with The Leeds. Between 1996 and the end of 2000, he undertook several roles in Halifax Retail. In 2001 David returned to HR as Head of Group HR Halifax plc but spent the year in Aylesbury co-leading the Equitable transaction and, Edinburgh on the Halifax-Bank of Scotland merger. He joined Business Banking in September 2001 as Managing Director, Operations and Human Resources.