Sir Peter Housden
Sir Peter Housden was appointed as Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government in June 2010.
He was previously Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, and had earlier served at the Department from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) where he was Director-General for Schools, responsible for primary and secondary education in England's 27,000 schools from 2001 to 2005.
Prior to joining DfES, Peter served from 1994 as chief executive of Nottinghamshire County Council, leading the organisation through local government review and a wide-ranging programme of modernisation.
In September 2000, he was seconded to the Audit Commission for six months to lead its work on the NHS national plan.
Peter began his career as a comprehensive school teacher in Shropshire and worked as an education officer in three county authorities before being appointed Director of Education in Nottinghamshire in 1991.
Peter is a trustee of the Work Foundation and an associate fellow of Warwick University Business School. Local Statesmen, his oral history of politics in Nottinghamshire County Council, was published in 2000.