Former Moderator Honoured for Public Service

Tuesday December 6

A former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has become just the third person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Scottish Public Service Awards.

Dr Alison Elliot was presented with the award at a ceremony held Monday evening in the Scottish Parliament.

Created in 2014 through a partnership of the Parliament, the Scottish Government and Holyrood magazine, the awards recognise excellence in public life.

Dr Elliot, who in 2004 became the first woman to serve as Moderator and the first Elder for over 400 years, said she felt lucky and grateful to receive the award, adding that it was ‘a bit premature, I hope’.

“I think the award itself will be one of the things I am most proud of because it is for public service,” she said.

“That is really the heart of what I’ve been trying to do for the last 30 years and I feel hugely privileged to have found myself in positions where I can exercise that.

“And I’ve been very lucky with the family and with my husband who has been fantastic all these years.”

Dr Elliot, 68, who also has five Honorary Degrees and an OBE, is associate director at the Centre for Theology and Public Issues in Edinburgh University’s School of Divinity.

She has been a member of the Christie Commission looking at the delivery of Scotland’s public services, convened the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, and chaired the Land Reform Review Group whose report laid the groundwork for this year’s Land Reform.

For the church, she has served as elder and session clerk at Greyfriars Kirk, spent 12 years on the central committee of the Conference of European Churches, was Convener of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Nation committee.

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