The Board

The Authority Board has responsibility for setting the overall strategic direction of the organisation, and for promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good.

 

  • 30 January 2020
  • 27 February 2020
  • 26 March 2020
  • 30 April 2020
  • 30 June 2020
  • 30 July 2020
  • 29 September 2020
  • 29 October 2020
  • 26 November 2020
  • 15 December 2020
  • 28 January 2021
  • 25 February 2020
  • 25 March 2021
  • 29 April 2021
  • 1 July 2021
  • 29 July 2021
  • 30 September 2021
  • 28 October 2021
  • 25 November 2021

Membership of the Board

The Chair

The Chair of the UK Statistics Authority is Sir David Norgrove. Sir David was appointed Chair of the Authority by Her Majesty the Queen in March 2017 following open competition, and with parliamentary approval.

The Board

Sir David Norgrove is Chair of the UK Statistics Authority.

The post of Chair of the UK Statistics Authority is a Crown appointment, made with the approval of Parliament following a pre-appointment hearing before the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee and a formal motion debated on the floor of the House of Commons. David was appointed to succeed the Authority’s second Chair, Sir Andrew Dilnot CBE, and he took up post in April 2017 for a five-year term.

Sir David was Deputy Chair of the Family Justice Board from 2012 until 2016 having chaired it from its inception in 2012.

Sir David is an external member and Deputy Chair of Oxford University Council. Sir David has been a trustee and Deputy Chair of the British Museum, and chaired the Low Pay Commission from 2009 to 2016, the Pensions Regulator from its inception in 2005 until 2010, Risk First from 2012 to 2015 and Amnesty International Charitable Trust from 2008 to 2014.  He chaired a Government review of the family justice system in 2010 – 11.

David began his career as an economist at the Treasury and worked in a Chicago bank before becoming Private Secretary to the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.  He spent 16 years with Marks & Spencer between 1988 and 2004 and became a member of the Board there.

David was knighted in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to the low paid and to family justice.

Non-Executive Members

The Board has a non-executive majority, and its sub-committees are chaired by non-executive directors.

Sian Jones is the Deputy Chair of the UK Statistics Authority.

Sian joined the Authority as a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority Board, starting post on 1 July 2016 for a period of three years.

Sian is Chief Executive Officer and founder of Correla Ltd, a technology and data company. Prior to this Sian held a number of senior positions at British Telecom (BT). Most notably, she was responsible for BT’s wholesale broadband portfolio, doubling the speed and coverage of copper broadband availability in the UK during her tenure. She has also held a number of Chief Information Officer and digital strategy roles at BT and subsequently at Clarks, spanning both large infrastructure and consumer facing technologies and business models.

Alongside a background in data analytics systems, Sian’s main area of specialism is how to bring about significant technology transformation, where cultural, employee and customer transformation are required in parallel.

Sian studied Artificial Intelligence at Sussex University and management at Harvard Business School.

Sian has been re-appointed for a further five years, ending on 1 July 2024.

The Board

The BoardHelen Boaden joined the Authority as a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority Board starting post on 30 May 2019 for a period of three years.

Helen started her career in commercial radio in the Middlesbrough but switched sides and worked for the BBC for 34 years, starting as a reporter on local radio in Leeds and ending on the Executive Board as Director of BBC Radio. In between she won awards for her journalism on Radio 4 and went on to become Controller of the station which won Sony Station of the Year twice under her leadership.

Helen became the first female Director of BBC News in 2004 and when she left the job eight years later, she was responsible for 8000 staff at home and abroad and led the team which created the largest multi media newsroom in the democratic world.

In 2017, Helen retired from the BBC take up a Fellowship at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research examined the pressures on the journalistic values of the BBC and the  American press. She now sits on the Shorenstein’s Advisory Board. In 2017, she gave evidence to the DCMS Parliamentary Committee’s investigation into Disinformation and ‘fake-news’.

She loves the Arts and being out of doors. In 2018 Helen produced The Boaden Review for the Irish public Service broadcaster, RTE, on the sustainability of its orchestras. She is Chair of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Alan Ayckbourn premiers his work. She sits on the Council of the Royal Academy of Arts where she chairs the Remuneration Committee. In 2019 she was appointed Chair of the Audio Content Fund, a new government backed scheme supporting creativity in commercial radio.

She chairs courses for Windsor Leadership, a charity which supports emerging and experienced leaders in the public sector. She is also President of HF Holidays, a hundred year old Co-operative devoted to walking and other outdoor activities.

Richard Dobbs

Richard Dobbs was a senior partner at the global consultancy McKinsey, where he was based in their London, Mumbai and Seoul offices. Since joining McKinsey in 1988, he served clients around the world on strategy, organisation and corporate finance issues. He was a Director of the McKinsey Global Institute, leading research on technology, urbanisation, the rise of the emerging markets consumer class, global capital supply and demand, corporate profitability, obesity and the global labour market. He was also a Director of the McKinsey Centre for Government, where he led research and outreach on government productivity and performance, and a Convenor of McKinsey’s Global Corporate Finance Practice.

Richard is a co-author of the 2015 book No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends and has taught Corporate Finance at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University.

Richard joined the board on 27 May 2020 for a period of three years.

sir john astonProfessor Sir John Aston is Harding Professor of Statistics in Public Life at the University of Cambridge, where he leads research into the use of quantitative evidence in public policy making, works with those in public life to ensure the best methods are used, and aims to improve the use of statistics and other quantitative evidence in public policy debates. He also works in the areas of statistics in healthcare, particularly medical imaging, and he is Co-Director of the Cambridge Mathematics of Information in Healthcare Hub. He was awarded a knighthood in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to statistics and public policymaking.

From 2017-2020 he was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office, and formerly was a board member and trustee of the Alan Turing Institute. He also worked at the Institute of Statistical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and the US Census Bureau.

John specialises in applied statistics, with particular interests in official and public policy statistics, statistical neuroimaging, statistical linguistics and methodological interests in time series and functional data analysis. He has a degree in Maths from Cambridge and a PhD in Statistics from Imperial College, London.

The BoardProfessor Jonathan Haskel joined the Authority as a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority Board, starting post on 1 February 2016 for a period of appointment of three years.

Since 2008 Jonathan has been Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London and Academic Director of the School. He was previously Professor and Head of Department at the Department of Economics, Queen Mary, University of London. He has taught at the University of Bristol and London Business School and been a visiting professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, USA; Stern School of Business, New York University, USA; and the Australian National University.

Jonathan is an elected member of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) and a research associate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, and the IZA, Bonn.

Since September 2015, Jonathan has been a member of the Financial Conduct Authority Competition Decisions Committee and the Payment System Regulator Enforcement and Competition Decisions Committee.

Between 2001-2010 Jonathan was a Member, Reporting Panel of the Competition Commission (now the Competition and Markets Authority), on market inquiries into Mobile Phones, Home Credit and Airports, and the EMAP/ABI merger.

Between 2013 and 2016, Jonathan was an elected member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society and between November 2012 and December 2015, a member of the “Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Experts” (RISE) high level group advising the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation, and Science on policy.

On 1 September 2018 Jonathan was appointed as an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee for a three-year term. Jonathan will continue to teach part-time in his capacity as Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School.

Jonathan’s research interests are growth, productivity and innovation in the knowledge economy and he has published papers on these topics in a number of journals.

Jonathan has been re-appointed for a further four years, ending on 1 February 2023.

The BoardNora Nanayakkara joined the Authority as a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority Board, starting post on 1 July 2016 for a period of three years.

Since 2009, Nora has been Non-Executive Director on the Board of Nominet, the technology company that manages the .uk domain name registry. In 2013, she was appointed to the Steering Board of The Intellectual Property Office (IPO), the official UK government body responsible for intellectual property (IP) rights. In this role, she focuses particularly on the organisation’s digital agenda.

Nora also sits as an independent Non-Executive Director on the inaugural Audit and Assurance Board of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and serves on its Performance Subcommittee. She contributes to the regulation of the dental profession through her role as a Lay Fitness-to-Practice Panellist at the General Dental Council (GDC). Nora has also been appointed as a subject-matter expert to several working groups at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global coordinating and policy-making body of the domain name system.

Prior to 2009, Nora developed her career in the digital and technology start-up sector and has worked in digital service and programme delivery operations management. She completed an MBA in 2007.

Nora has been re-appointed for a further five years, ending on 1 July 2024.

Nora is Chair of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, replacing Dame Colette Bowe.

The Board

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, where he leads work between the Centre and actors in fields such as health, media and government to improve the way quantitative evidence is used in society. His background is in medical statistics, particularly the use of Bayesian methods in clinical trials, health technology assessment and drug safety, a field in which he is one of the most cited and influential researchers. He was awarded an OBE for services to medical statistics in 2006. His interest in performance monitoring led to his being asked to lead the statistical team in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, and he also gave evidence to the Shipman Inquiry.

Sir David is the author of the 2019 book The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data and was President of the Royal Statistical Society for 2017-18.

Sir David joined the board on 27 May 2020 for a period of three years.

The BoardAnne Trefethen was appointed to the Board in June 2018 for a term of four years.

Anne is a Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor of Scientific Computing and Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford.

Prior to being appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Gardens, Libraries and Museums) in January 2015, she was appointed as the University’s first Chief Information Officer in March 2012.  Anne joined the University to lead the creation of the Oxford e-Research Centre where she served as the Director for over 6 years. Her research has been focused on high-performance numerical algorithms and large-scale scientific applications. She has contributed to the fields of parallel numerical algorithms, software design and engineering and most recently to energy-aware algorithms.

Before coming to Oxford in 2005, she was a Director of the UK e-Science Core Programme working with the Research Councils and DTI (now Innovate UK). She has spent ten years in the US at Thinking Machines Inc. and as Associate Director at the Theory Centre, Cornell University.

In November 2018, Anne was appointed to the Chair’s position for the Regulation Committee, replacing Sir Adrian Smith.

Executive Members

The Authority Board has three executive members: The National Statistician, the Director General for Regulation, and the Second Permanent Secretary.

The Board

Professor Sir Ian Diamond FBA FRSE FAcSS became National Statistician on 22 October 2019.

Sir Ian previously served as a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority Board from June 2018 to August 2019.

Sir Ian was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen from 2010 to 2018. He was previously Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research (ESRC) Council and, from 2004 to 2009, Chair of the Research Councils UK Executive Group (2004-2009).

Before joining the ESRC, Sir Ian was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton, where he had been for most of his career. Sir Ian is Chair of British Universities and Colleges Sport, Chair of Edinburgh College of Further Education, Chair of Plan International UK and a Board member of UK Research and Innovation. He chaired the Welsh Assembly Government of the Higher Education Review for Wales reporting in 2016.

Sir Ian was elected to the UK Academy of Social Sciences in 1999, is a Fellow of the British Academy (2005), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2009) and holds honorary degrees from the universities of Cardiff, Glasgow and Curtin.

The National Statistician

The National Statistician is a Crown appointment as the Authority’s and the Government’s principal adviser on official statistics. The National Statistician is:

  • principal adviser to the UK Statistics Authority  and Government on official statistics.
  • a member of Authority Board as Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary.
  • Head of the Government Statistical Service (GSS).  Government Statistical Service (GSS) statistical policies, standards and guidance can be found in the Policy Store. This includes Guidance and other information from the National Statistician.

Main responsibilities

  • Planning of the development of statistics across government
  • Supporting statisticians and other officials to comply with the Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics
  • Advising ministers, the Cabinet Secretary and other senior officials on the production, dissemination and use of statistics across government
  • Professional leadership for all statisticians producing official statistics, as Head of the GSS
  • Strategic oversight of the Office of National Statistics
  • Maintain strong relationships with devolved administrations; respecting their specific needs for devolved and other statistics while ensuring as far as possible harmonisation, coherence and consistency in UK-wide statistics
  • Act as head of the UK’s National Statistical Institute, promoting UK interests as well as contributing to higher standards in statistics across the world.

Reviews

These reviews were commissioned or undertaken by the National Statistician as Head of the Government Statistical Service.

Contacting the National Statistician

You can email the National Statistician team or write to:

National Statistician
UK Statistics Authority
Statistics House
Cardiff Road
Newport
South Wales
NP10 8XG

Image of Ed Humpherson, Director General of RegulationThe post of Head of Assessment is a statutory post under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The Head of Assessment is the Authority’s principal adviser on the assessment and reassessment of official statistics and their compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and is operationally known as the Director General for Regulation.

Ed Humpherson was appointed as Director General for Regulation in October 2013 and took up post in January 2014.

Prior to joining, Ed was a Board Member and Executive Leader for Economic Affairs at the National Audit Office, a post he held since July 2009. This role included responsibility for the overall strategic direction of NAO’s work on economic affairs.

Amongst other previous responsibilities, Ed oversaw the NAO’s response to the recent financial crisis through building capability in capital markets and financial services work. He also coordinated the NAO’s programme of work on the administration of the tax system and the welfare system; led the NAO’s work on public private partnerships and major infrastructure developments, including in transport and energy; and oversaw the development of the NAO’s audit of the Whole of Government Accounts.

Between 2007 and 2009, Ed Humpherson was Assistant Auditor General, and before that was NAO’s Director of Regulation between 2003 and 2007. Ed joined the National Audit Office in 1993.

Ed Humpherson was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he obtained a first-class MA honours degree in Politics and Economic History.

Ed is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Ed is married and has three children.

Portrait image of Sam BeckettSam Beckett was appointed to the role of Second Permanent Secretary and Deputy Chief Executive at ONS in August 2020.

Sam brings a host of experience to the role, most recently as the Acting Permanent Secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Prior to that she held a number of Director General roles in the department, including Director General for Trade, Europe and Analysis. She is also Joint Head of the Government Economics Service and will retain this responsibility as part of her new role.

 

Jonathan AthowDeputy National Statistician for Economic Statistics• Trustee, Institute for Fiscal Studies and member of their Executive Committee
• Council of the Royal Economic Society (Jonathan’s election to the Council of the Royal Economic Society is subject to ratification by the Society’s AGM in May 2021)
Sam BeckettSecond Permanent Secretary and Deputy Chief Executive• None
Iain BellDeputy National Statistician for
Population & Public Policy
• None
Helen BoadenNon-Executive Director• BBC Pension linked to RPI
• Chair: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
• Chair: Audio Content Fund
• Council Member: Royal Academy of Arts
• Advisory Board member: Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
• Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Mass. USA
• Trustee: Stockroom Theatre Company
• Advisory Board member, Reuters Institute, University of Oxford
• Trustee, The Richard Dimbleby Cancer fund
• President: HF Holidays
• Board member of the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership
Professor Sir Ian DiamondNational Statistician• Chair, Council for Mathematical Sciences
• Board, UKRI
• Trustee, Population Investigation Committee
• Council Member, Lancaster University
• Cousin Member of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB)
• Chair, Plan UK
• Chair, Acceptance of Gifts Group, British Academy
• Son economist at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
• Son at Exeter University
• Welsh Chief Scientists Group
• Advisory Board, Resolution Foundation
• USS pension
Richard DobbsNon-Executive
Director
• Chairman Data Gumbo
• Non-Executive Director Lucy Group Ltd.
• Trustee (and Director) Sea View Yacht Club Ltd.
• Retirement medical benefits and a defined-contribution pension from McKinsey
• Occasional contributor to The Spectator.
• With family, hold a portfolio of various listed and unlisted investments. Some of these are suppliers or potential suppliers to the public sector including some that are in the field of potential COVID-19 treatments, vaccines or testing.
Professor Jonathan HaskelNon-Executive Director• Professor of Economics, Imperial College
• Member, Conference on Research in Income and Wealth
• Research associate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research
• Member, Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England from 1 September 2018 to 31 August 2021
• USS pension
Ed HumphersonDirector General for Regulation• Trustee of Motability, the charity supporting the mobility of disabled people.
• Trustee, Pro Bono Economics
• Trustee, Regulatory Policy Institute
Sian JonesDeputy Chair• Chief Executive Officer, Correla, March 2021
• Non-Executive Director for Xoserve (www.xoserve.com) September 2016 to June 2017
• Vice President, Institute of Customer Service
Nora NanayakkaraNon-Executive
Director
• Chair of Fitness to Practice Panel, General Dental Council
• Independent Member of Audit & Assurance Board, National Police Chiefs’ Council (stood down end of 2016)
• Non-Executive Director & Chair of Nominations Committee, Nominet UK (2009 to 2015)
• Lay fitness to practice Chair at the General Osteopathic Council
• Trustee and Chair of Audit Committee, Nominet Trust (resigned January 2018)
• Independent Member of Audit & Risk Committee, The General Council of the Bar
• Appointed lay member to the Regulatory Board at the ACCA in January 2019
• Appointed to the Dentists’ and Doctors’ Review Body (DDRB) in February 2019. (Ministerial appointment)
• Appointed as Non-Executive Director to the Board of the Digital Hub Development Agency in Ireland in July 2019
• Appointed as Chair of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Appointments Board in August 2019
Sir David NorgroveChair• RPI-linked M&S pension
• Trustee, British Museum Trust
Alison PritchardDeputy National Statistician for Data Capability• Sole Director of Kirrin Productions Ltd
Professor Sir David SpiegelhalterNon-Executive Director• State Pension
• USS Pension
• Patron of the Karuna Trust charity
Professor Anne TrefethenNon-Executive Director• Trustee JISC
• Council Member, University of Oxford
• USS Pension
• STFC TAAB, Member
• FableData, Director
Professor Sir John AstonNon-Executive Director• Professor at University of Cambridge;
• Independent Member of Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, Home Office;
• USS Pension

  • Professor David Hand (Non-Executive Director from 1 April 2013 – 1 July 2021)
  • Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS (Non-Executive Director 1 April 2008 to 1 September 2008, and again from 1 September 2012 to 31 March 2020)
  • Professor Sir Ian Diamond FBA FRSE FAcSS (Non-Executive Director 1 June 2018 to 5 August 2019)
  • Dr David Levy (Non-Executive Director 1 August 2012 to 31 May 2019)
  • Dame Colette Bowe DBE (Non-Executive Director 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2018)
  • Dame Moira Gibb DBE  (Non-Executive Director 1 February 2008 to 31 January 2018)
  • Sir Andrew Dilnot CBE  (Chair  1 April 2012 to 31 March 2017)
  • Ms Carolyn Fairbairn  (Non-Executive Director  1 April 2013 to 30 September 2015)
  • Professor David Rhind  (Deputy Chair (Statistics System)  1 July 2012 to 30 June 2015)
  • Mr Partha Dasgupta  (Non-Executive Director  1 April 2008 to 30 June 2014)
  • Sir Jon Shortridge  (Non-Executive Director  1 February 2010 to 30 October 2012)
  • Lord David Rowe-Beddoe  (Deputy Chair (ONS)  1 April 2008 to 31 August 2012)
  • Sir Michael Scholar KCB  (Chair  1 April 2008 to 31 March 2012)
  • Professor Sir Roger Jowell CBE  (Deputy Chair (Statistics System)  11 November 2008 to 25 December 2011)
  • Professor Stephen Nickell CBE FBA  (Non-Executive Director  1 April 2008 to 31 October 2010)
  • Sir Alan Langlands FRSE  Non-Executive Director  (1 April 2008 to 12 April 2009)