Board Members & Leadership

Bob Stewart - Chairperson

Bob left the world of construction in Glasgow in the 70’s to train to be a Social Worker. He went on to spend a number of years as a Social Work Practice Teacher.

Bob worked in the Edinburgh voluntary sector for over 40 years, developing and managing a wide range of services for organisations such as Cyrenians, Rock Trust, SACRO and Four Square. His final post was that of Director of Homelessness Services for Dunedin Canmore Housing Association.

Bob chaired the Scottish Office sponsored multi- agency Committee, which produced the Supporting People Plan for Edinburgh.

Active involvement with his local community included Chairperson of Tollcross Community Council and Chairperson of Board of Directors of Tollcross Times community newspaper.

Now retired - when not helping to look after his two boisterous grandsons - Bob is an avid reader of crime fiction, swims regularly and reputedly has a wicked service when playing weekly table tennis with his pals.

Bob joined the Board of Directors in February 2019. He is a member of the Finance Committee and has been Chairperson since 2022.

Alan Swift

Alan was a career civil servant with experience in a variety of Departments. For over 20 years he was Director of Human Resources at the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Services and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He was on the Board of Jewel and Esk College before it became part of Edinburgh College.  He has been on the Garvald Edinburgh Board since 2011. Now retired, he has a variety of interests including trail walking, birdwatching and sport.

Laurie M Naumann

Laurie’s experience lies in social work, working with offenders and in the fields of addiction, and housing. Latterly, he was the Director of the Scottish Council for Single Homeless. He was seconded at one time to the Social Work Services Inspectorate in The Scottish Office concentrating on voluntary sector issues. He was also secretary of the Care in the Community Scottish Working Group. One of Laurie’s earliest memories is of living at Garvald School near West Linton where his parents were the cooks for about a year.

He is now self-employed working in the social policy field mainly in Scotland and Central Europe, and also a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee.  Laurie is a founder Board member of Kingdom Housing Association in Fife, chairs the Highland Housing and Community Care Trust and is a Board member of both the Refugee Survival Trust and the Voluntary Action Fund.

Laurie joined the Garvald Edinburgh Board in 1996. As well as Chairing the Board, he is a member of the Finance and Premises Committees.

Bob Walley

Bob is a Clinical Psychologist, who before retirement from the NHS, worked in the   Lothian NHS Learning Disability and Regional Autistic Spectrum Disorder Consultancy Services as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. Bob is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at Edinburgh Napier University and has a number of health-related learning disability research interests.

Tiffany Ritchie

Tiff is a chartered accountant and started her career in London working for PwC with clients in Education and the public sector. She moved to Scotland in 2019 having led Finance functions in UK and Scottish Government. Tiff is currently Deputy Director Finance at the Scottish Funding Council, responsible for funding the universities and colleges of Scotland. She joined the Garvald Board and Finance & Risk Committee in 2021 and became Chair of the Finance & Risk Committee in 2023. Outside of work, Tiff is kept busy by her large and growing family, in particular trying to keep up with her toddler!

Alastair Hackland

Alastair is an architect who has wide  experience of working in housing provision for local authorities , housing associations and government.

He co-founded his Edinburgh based architectural practice  Hackland + Dore Architects  over30 years ago. The practice work is mainly in the residential sector with award winning projects for housing associations , local authorities and private developers with an emphasis on urbanism and sustainable design.

He has acted as advisor to housing associations on housing design particularly special needs provision.

Semi-retired -  outside interests include travel, reading, listening to music and walking the dog.

Diane Millen

Biography to come

Bryan Goodfellow

Biography to come