Gary Ritchie

Background

About Gary Ritchie

I am, first and foremost, a collaborator. I am enthusiastic about building relationships with colleagues, partners, communities or customers, understanding the value of having a shared vision and working together to achieve it. My entire career has focussed on public service; for the last 20 years as a senior manager and director. I understand the need for relevant strategies and translating strategy into successful and sustainable delivery. I am a confident and very competent communicator and have built strong relationships with government (at ministerial level), other public service partners and external bodies, all focussed on improving service and outcomes through collaboration. I have overcome traditional borders and regulatory obstacles and built sustainable international collaborations founded on principles of public service, values-based leadership and accountability. I have developed, implemented and led significant organisational and cultural change which has altered perceptions and changed lives, including: • Establishing Police Scotland as the first police service in the world where all operational officers are trained to carry and use Naloxone resulting in over 500 interventions (to date) where police officers have helped to save the lives of vulnerable people. In doing so I built strong collaborations with public health, support services, government, academia and the media. • Creating the first policing drug strategy focussed on harm reduction rather than enforcement, building a multi-agency strategy group, including representation from vulnerable communities and those living with addiction, to help shape policies and strategies aimed at reducing the harm associated with problematic drug use. • Building organisational strategies to transform engagement with communities across the policing and public health system, particularly focussed on marginalised, seldom heard and vulnerable communities. • Instituting the Police Scotland International Academy, collaborating with police services, governments and international institutions to support capacity building in line with UN sustainability goals. I also led the development of international senior policing leadership programmes with support from governments and policing organisations across the globe. Currently my role is focussed on delivering specialist policing services to the people of Scotland, including the policing of events, public order, armed policing, counter terrorism protect operations, community resilience and emergencies planning. “No-one can whistle a symphony!” – HE Luccock