Richard Perry

Richard Perry

Richard Perry is one of the Scottish Labour’s candidates for Auchtertool, Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy.

Since joining the Labour Party in the mid 1970s, he has been active in local, UK and Scottish Parliament elections .  In the 1970s Richard was a member of the Labour Group on Warwick Council and a County Council candidate. He stood in Lothian Regional Council elections in the 1980s and was an active member of the election team in West Lothian.  Richard moved to Burntisland in 1991 where he has lived since with his Fife born-and-bred wife and her daughter.

Richard grew up in Warwickshire. After leaving school, he worked in commerce before joining the staff of a local authority welfare department.  He went on to study social work in Nottingham and qualified as a social worker in 1971. Richard has worked in a variety of roles and settings as a social worker, some amongst communities in the North Warwickshire coalfield and in the urban sprawl of Coventry and Birmingham.

Richard moved to Scotland over 30 years ago to take up a post at Moray House College of Education. Following its merger with the University of Edinburgh, he was a senior lecturer and one time head of subject at the University.

As well as studying at Trent Polytechnic, Richard is a graduate of the Open University and holds a postgraduate MA Applied Social Studies by research from Warwick University.

Richard’s experience and interests lie across all fields of the personal social services and his research covered childcare and child protection, criminal justice, community care and services for adults with learning disabilities. He was Co-Editor of an international journal in social work education for 3 years up to 2009. He maintains a keen interest in the field, as well as having extensive personal experience as a carer for older relatives.

Throughout his working life Richard was an active trade unionist, including membership of NALGO and NUPE and finally the EIS