Dr Rod McLean is the head of the Serious & Organised Crime System Unit in the Home Office. In recent years, he has focused on SOC but was previously head of the Fire Safety Unit. He has worked in every part of the Home Office, as well as in the Ministry of Justice, as Deputy Director for Judicial Pay and Pensions, in the independent Inspectorate of Borders and Immigration as Assistant Chief Inspector, and in the UK Permanent Representation to the European Union. He holds a first-class degree in history from Edinburgh University, a doctorate in History from Sussex University, and a Masters with distinction in Public Policy from the LSE.

Before joining the civil service as a fast streamer in the then Scottish Executive, he was briefly an academic historian and is the author of several scholarly publications on diplomatic and German history before the First World War, most notably Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe, 1890-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2001).