The UK Statistics Authority warmly welcomes the appointment of Carolyn Fairbairn and Professor David Hand as non-executive members of the Authority Board, both taking up post on 1 April 2013 for a period of appointment of three years.
Speaking today, Andrew Dilnot, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said:
“I am delighted that the Minister for the Cabinet Office has appointed Carolyn Fairbairn and David Hand as non-executive members of the UK Statistics Authority. Carolyn and David bring with them enormously varied professional insights from the world of statistics and the media and beyond, and these will be of great benefit to us all on the Statistics Authority Board. I am very much looking forward to welcoming them both.”
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Notes for Editors:
- The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body operating at arm’s length from government as a non-ministerial department, directly accountable to Parliament. It was established on 1 April 2008 by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
- The Authority’s statutory objective is to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It is also required to promote and safeguard the quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics, and ensure good practice in relation to official statistics.
- The Authority’s functions relate to its statutory areas of responsibility:
– oversight of the UK official statistics system, which includes around 30 central government departments and the devolved administrations, and the promotion, safeguarding and monitoring of quality, comprehensiveness and good practice in relation to all official statistics, wherever produced;
– production of a Code of Practice for Statistics and assessment of official statistics against the Code; and,
– governance of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the UK’s National Statistical Institute and the largest producer of official statistics. - Membership of the Authority’s Board comprises the Chair of the Authority, seven other nonexecutive members, and three executive members.
- Further information about the UK Statistics Authority is available on the Authority’s website statistics-authority.helpful.ws
Carolyn Fairbairn - Carolyn Fairbairn has been appointed as a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority with effect from 1 April 2013 for a period of three years.
- Since 2012, Carolyn Fairbairn has served as a non-executive director of Lloyds Banking Group and Vitec Group plc, and she is currently a Trustee of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Between 2009 and 2011, Carolyn was Chair of the Royal Television Society, and was a non-executive director of the Financial Services Authority between 2008 and 2011.
- Carolyn has held a number of senior UK media roles, including as Director of Group Development and Strategy at ITV, Director of Strategy and Distribution at the BBC, and Director of Strategy at BBC Worldwide. Carolyn was a partner at McKinsey and Company in London where she led McKinsey’s UK media practice serving clients in the UK and Europe, specialising in digital strategy. Before joining the BBC, Carolyn was a special adviser in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street (1995-97). Her early career was as an economist at the World Bank in both Washington DC and Bangkok, and as a journalist working for The Economist in London.
- Carolyn was educated at the University of Cambridge where she read Economics, followed by postgraduate study at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, near Paris, and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Professor David Hand OBE FBA - Professor David Hand OBE FBA has been appointed as a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority with effect from 1 April 2013 for a period of three years.
- Professor Hand is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London. He was previously Professor of Statistics at Imperial College (1999-2011) during which time he was also Head of the Mathematics in Banking and Finance Programme (2005-09); before that he was Professor of Statistics at the Open University (1988-99). Since 2010, he has served as Chief Scientific Adviser to Winton Capital Management.
- Professor Hand was President of the Royal Statistical Society for two terms (2008-09 and 2010) and is currently an external member of the UK Statistics Authority’s Committee for Official Statistics. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, a member of the UK Strategic Forum for the Social Sciences, and a member of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He was President of both the British Classification Society (1989-92) and the International Federation of Classification Societies (2006-07).
- Professor Hand was educated at the University of Oxford and University of Southampton. He won the Royal Statistical Society’s Guy Medal in Silver in 2002 and was awarded the OBE for services to Research and Innovation in the New Year Honours in 2013.