Joe FitzPatrick is the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Dundee City West.

In the Scottish Parliamentary Elections in May 2011 he was re-elected, more than trebling his majority, with almost double the number of votes of the Labour candidate as the SNP triumphed across Scotland winning an overall majority in the Parliament, the first time this has been achieved since the advent of Devolution in 1999.

Joe was thereafter appointed as Convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Regeneration Committee – and re-elected as Secretary of the SNP Group in the Parliament – a position he held for the past four years.

In September 2012, Joe was appointed as Minister for Parliamentary Business in the Scottish Government.

In the previous Government, Joe was Parliamentary Liaison Officer for Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney. He helped to set up a Cross Party Group on Life Sciences which he co-chaired. In June 2008, Douglas Fraser, writing in Holyrood magazine, tipped Joe as ‘a politician to watch.’

Prior to his election as an MSP in 2007, Joe worked as an assistant to Shona Robison MSP and Stewart Hosie MP in their Dundee Constituency Office and was a Dundee City Councillor from 1999 serving as SNP group Whip and Finance Spokesperson on Dundee Council. As a Dundee Councillor from 1999 to 2007, Joe was a member of all the main Committees during his term of office and a member of the Licensing Board from 2003 – 2007. He also represented the Council on a number of outside bodies, including:

1999 – 2003  Campaign for Rail Electrification Aberdeen to Edinburgh (CREATE)

1999 – 2003  COSLA Convention

1999 – 2002  Dundee City Council Sports Association for the Disabled

1999 – 2003  City of Dundee Sports Council

1999 – 2004  Member of the Board, Dundee Ice Rink

2005 – 2006  Member of the Board, Dundee Ice Arena

2001 – 2002  COSLA Royal Blind Asylum School

2001 – 2003  COSLA Spokesperson Consumer and Protection Services

2003 – 2007  COSLA Association for Public Services Excellence

Joe was born in Dundee in 1967 and educated at Whitfield High School. He studied Forestry at Inverness College, and undertook undergraduate study at Abertay University and postgraduate study at Dundee University.  As a student, Joe was NUS Convenor, North of Scotland.