National Statistician’s Data Ethics Advisory Committee (NSDEC)

Helen started her journalistic career in local radio in Leeds and went onto become the first female Director of BBC News. For eight years from 2004, she led 8000 staff at home and abroad and the team which created the biggest multi media newsroom in the democratic world.

She is an award winning journalist who became Editor of Radio 4’s investigative programme, File on 4 and then Head of BBC Current Affairs before becoming Controller of Radio 4. Under her stewardship, Radio 4 won Sony Station of the Year twice.

Her final BBC role was Director of BBC Radio, with a seat on the Executive Board. She was responsible for 10 network radio stations, three orchestras, two choirs and the BBC Proms.

She left the BBC in 2017 and took up a Fellowship at the Shorenstein Centre on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She recently completed a full term on the Center’s Advisory Board.

In 2018 she produced The Boaden Review for the Irish public service broadcaster, RTE, on the sustainability of its orchestras.

She chaired the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough for ten years. She now chairs York Theatre Royal supporting its CEO and team as it implements a successful new vision for its creative programme and building.

Helen sat on the Council for the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, London for six years and chaired the Audio Content Fund set up by the DCMS for three years.

She was on the board of the UK Statistics Authority during the Covid Pandemic and for the 2021 Census for which the Authority was ultimately responsible.

In July 2025, Helen was appointed as Chair of the Steering Group of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

She also chairs the board of Windsor Leadership, a national leadership charity founded by the late Duke of Edinburgh thirty years ago.

She is Patron of the Books by the Beach festival in Scarborough in North Yorkshire and President of HF Holidays, a 100 year old cooperative society which encourages hiking and activity holidays in the UK and abroad.

Stephen Balchin is Head Workforce Information and Analysis at the Department of Health and Social Care where he’s responsible for analytical support in decision making around how we make sure we have the right number of people to run the health and social care systems. He was previously Head of Profession for Statistics at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) where he was responsible for a range of statistical outputs including Family Resources Survey, estimates of Fraud and Error in the benefit system and the wide range of statistics based on DWP’s benefit system. He’s had a range of posts in DWP including leading a team providing analytical support to Finance and Human Resources, Lead Analyst for Social Justice looking at most disadvantaged in the Labour Market and developing analysis on older workers. Before working in DWP he worked in No 10, HM Treasury providing distributional analysis on taxes and benefits and in ONS.

Vanessa Cuthill has been reappointed for the duration of three years. She is currently Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of Sussex, having taken up this post in September 2022. Previously, Vanessa has been Director of Research at The British Academy, Director of Research and Enterprise at the University of Essex, and immediately prior at the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). During her time at the ESRC she has commissioned and led projects establishing social sciences data resources including the Administrative Data Research Network and longitudinal surveys; and advised on health and social data legislation developments and policy, working closely with a wide range of government departments and other research funders. Vanessa has also worked at the University of Bath, during which time she established their social sciences ethics committee.

Dr Sarah Markham is an academic mathematician and long-term patient and patient advocate with a passion for promoting ethical and practicable uses of patient and other clinical health and population.

Stephen John is Hatton Professor of Public Health in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and a fellow at Pembroke College. He has published widely on issues around the relationship between population-level data and individual-level decision-making, and the ethics of expertise, with a particular focus on screening policies and vaccination debates. He is the author of “Objectivity in Science” and co-editor of “The Limits of the Numerical”.

Ray Harris has worked in statistical roles throughout his career.  He started working life in the NHS but then spent the rest of his career within the international pharmaceutical industry.   He has worked across all phases of clinical development and in a very wide range of therapeutic areas, with statistical, management and consultancy responsibilities.  He is a Chartered Statistician and an honorary member of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry, where he has held a variety of roles on the Board and, most recently, was a member of the judging panel for the Statistical Excellence in the Pharmaceutical Industry award.  He is a member of the Health Research Authority’s Sheffield Ethics Committee, Imperial College’s Science, Engineering and Technology Research Ethics Committee and Oxford Primary Care Hosted Research Datasets Independent Scientific Committee.

Orla McBride is Reader in Psychology, Ulster University. Orla is the Northern Ireland lead for the ESRC-funded Early Life Cohort Study. This role involves liaising with a wide range of stakeholders, including parents, researchers, government employees, and administrative data custodians to secure the necessary permissions for this study in Northern Ireland.

Orla was part of the Scientific Leadership team for the ‘Youth Wellbeing Prevalence Survey 2020’, Northern Ireland’s first prevalence study of common mental health problems in children and young people. This study was commissioned by Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Board.

Orla has considerable experience of working with a wide range of social science data sets including cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys, health administrative and Census data, and linked administrative data.

Orla is a member of the Northern Ireland All Party Group on Policy and Public Data. This Group considers at government level how routinely collected data is used for public benefit.

Dr Rochelle Tractenberg is a US-based biostatistician and accredited Professional Statistician (PStat®) with the American Statistical Association. She is a professor at Georgetown University and internationally recognised for advancing ethical data science, statistics, artificial intelligence, and mathematics. Her work centres on fostering public trust through ethical data collection, use, and management; scientific integrity; and responsible governance. She has led the revisions of the ASA’s Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice, contributed to the ethical practice guidelines for mathematics, and serves on the Committee on Professional Ethics for the Association of Computing Machinery. She is a contributor to the forthcoming United Nations guide Ethics in Official Statistics, and supports the International Group on Indigenous Health Measurement with her expertise in ethically evaluating and measuring complex biomedical constructs. She is an elected Fellow of the ASA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Statistics Institute.

• Colin Godbold
• Monica Magadi
• Isabel Nisbet
• Keith Dugmore
• Annie Hitchman
• Brent Mittelstadt
• Emma Uprichard
• Moira Gibb
• Marion Oswald

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