Ian Oliver

Ian Oliver, QPM, is a former police officer, author, speaker and international consultant for the United Nations. He served as Chief Constable of Scotland's Central and Grampian Police. Since leaving the police force, he has worked as a consultant and speaker on the issues of drugs, terrorism and trafficking. He is a published author, a board member of the International Scientific & Medical Advisory Forum on Drug Abuse, an appointed life member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and an elected Member of the Institute of Global Drug Policy. Oliver is the father of Craig Oliver, the final special adviser to David Cameron's government.

After training as a company secretary, Oliver served as an officer with the Royal Air Force between 1959 and 1961. After leaving the Air Force he joined London's Metropolitan Police Service as a constable, working his way up to the rank of Superintendent. He moved to Northumbria Police as a Chief Superintendent in 1977, then later became the force's Assistant Chief Constable. In 1979 he was appointedas Chief Constable of Central Scotland Police, a job he held for eleven years until moving to the neighbouring Grampian force. Part of his remit at Central covered the Grangemouth Oil Refinery. He was Chief Constable of Grampian Police from 1990 to 1998. During his time in Scotland he was twice elected as President of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, as well as International Vice President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He was also awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished Police Service.

In 1998 he took early retirement after a tabloid newspaper published details of his private life, and a report by the Grampian Police Board heavily criticised the force's handling of the investigation into the 1997 murder of Scott Simpson, a nine-year-old boy who was murdered by a convicted paedophile near his Aberdeen home. Since leaving the police Oliver has worked as an international consultant for the United Nations and Europe from 1998, a visiting lecturer at the University of Teesside (1999–2003), a drug training consultant to Aberdeen College of Further Education since 2005 and as consultant for Decision Strategies plc from 2003 to 2005. In 2009 he was appointed as the head of justice and security in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, where he worked closely with the Afghan National Police in a bid to reform the police and justice system of the area.

His son, Craig Oliver, is a former BBC News executive who was appointed as David Cameron's special adviser in February 2011, following the resignation of Andy Coulson.

• The Metropolitan Police Approach to the Prosecution of Juvenile Offenders: Peel Press (1978)
• Police, Government and Accountability: Macmillan (1987, reprinted 1996)
• Weekly column for the Press and Journal (2001 – present)