Brown left school at age 15 to work for a small insurance company, later returning to Stevenson College to get her Higher examinations through evening classes. In 1983, at age of 37, she graduated from the University of Edinburgh with first-class honours in economics and politics.
Academic career
In 1984 Brown took a temporary academic position at the University of Stirling, lecturing in Economics. The following year she began working for the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer. With some funding from the Economic and Social Research Council she studied the work of Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and went on to complete a PhD with her research. She was promoted to the head of the Politics department in 1995 and then was given a personal chair in Politics in 1997. She became Vice-Principal of the University in 1999.
Scottish Parliament
After the Scottish electorate voted for a parliament in the devolution referendum in September 1997, a group was set up the following month that was tasked with drawing up detailed proposals for the standing orders to be used in the new Scottish Parliament. Brown was a member of this consultative steering group which reported to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, in December 1998. In 1998 Brown became involved with the governance of Scotland forum. The Institute of Governance at the University of Edinburgh was established in 1999 with Brown as a founding Co-Director. She was also part of Labour's panel to vet their prospective candidates for the 1999 Scottish Parliament election. Brown was known for being a champion of gender equality, and her work contributed towards a better gender balance in the 1st Scottish Parliament. She was a member of the Committee on Standardsin Public Life, first appointed on 1 November 1998 and reappointed on 1 November 2001.
Ombudsman
In 2002, the parliament made preparations to replace a confusing system of several ombudsman offices which had been in operation since before the new parliament was set up. The changes were to allow a convenient way for members of the public to make complaints about a range of organisations providing public services. After some debate about whether the title of the person leading the service should be gender-neutral, the new legislation created the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. In June 2002 a cross-party selection panel nominated Brown to lead this service, with Presiding Officer David Steel having the casting vote. Parliament then approved the nomination. Brown's appointment was then made by the Queen on 30 September 2002, taking up all her functions and powers from 23 October 2002. As the ombudsman, she was assisted by three part-time deputy ombudsmen and 38 members of staff. On taking up the ombudsman post she stepped down from her university position and from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. After serving a first term of five years, the Scottish Parliament approved the nomination for her to be reappointed in March 2007. Her second term of office lasted two years, and she was succeeded by Jim Martin who took office in 1 May 2009. She was appointed to the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council for a four-year period from 1 December 2008. She led the team that wrote Right First Time, a report that was published in June 2011, advising that the decision-making processes used by public bodies generally needed to improve.
Other appointments
In 2011 she was elected the first female General Secretary of the RSE. a position she resigned in October 2013 on her appointment as chair of the Scottish Funding Council. In 2019 she was appointed the first female chancellor of Abertay University.
