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UK Statistics AuthorityNewsAppointments to the Board of the UK Statistics Authority

The UK Statistics Authority warmly welcomes the appointment of Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS and Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FBA as Deputy Chairs of the UK Statistics Authority, and the appointment of Dr David Levy as a non-executive member of the Authority Board.

Professor Sir Adrian Smith has been appointed as Deputy Chair of the Authority with responsibility for the governance of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and will take up post as a Deputy Chair on 1 September 2012.

Sir Adrian succeeds Lord Rowe-Beddoe of Kilgetty whose term of office ends on 31 August 2012. Sir Adrian was previously a member of the Authority Board until his appointment to a senior role in the Civil Service in 2008. Professor David Rhind has been appointed as Deputy Chair of the Authority with responsibility for promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of all official statistics across the UK.

Professor Rhind has been a member of the Authority Board since 2008 and has been chair of the Authority’s Audit Committee. David Rhind’s appointment as a Deputy Chair is with effect from 1 July 2012. He succeeds the late Professor Sir Roger Jowell who sadly passed away in December 2011. Dr David Levy will take up post as a non-executive member of the Board on 1 August 2012.

Speaking today, Andrew Dilnot, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said:

“I am delighted that the Minister for the Cabinet Office has appointed David Rhind and Adrian Smith as Deputy Chairs of the UK Statistics Authority. David and Adrian bring with them enormous experience of the world of UK official statistics, and both have a record of commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the work of the UK Statistics Authority and the success of the ONS and the wider UK statistical system.

“I am also very much looking forward to welcoming David Levy to our Board; the knowledge and insight he has gained from his career so far will be instrumental in helping the Authority to further shape and develop statistical communication across the ONS and beyond.

“I would like to pay tribute to Lord David Rowe-Beddoe whose term of office as our Deputy Chair with responsibility for governance of ONS will shortly come to an end. David has been very much at the centre of the Authority’s life over these past four years, and his leadership in our oversight of ONS has been second-to-none. I and my colleagues on the Authority Board wish David all the very best for the future, and offer him our heartfelt thanks for the enormous service he has given to us.”

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Notes for Editors:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. The UK Statistics Authority has two main functions:
    – oversight of the Office for National Statistics (ONS); and,
    – independent scrutiny of all official statistics produced in the UK.
  4. Membership of the Authority’s Board comprises the Chair of the Authority, seven other non-executive members, and three executive members.
  5. Further information about the UK Statistics Authority is available on the Authority’s website statistics-authority.helpful.ws

    Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FBA
  6. Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FBA has been appointed as Deputy Chair with responsibility for advising and supervising the Authority’s regulatory work and promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of all official statistics across the UK. Professor Rhind has been a non-executive member of the Board of the UK Statistics Authority since 2008. He takes up post as Deputy Chair with effect from 1 July 2012 for a term of three years.
  7. Professor Rhind was a member of the former Statistics Commission from 2000 to 2008, and between 2003 and 2008 was the Commission’s chairman. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. He was appointed CBE in 2001 for services to geographical and social sciences.
  8. David Rhind was Vice-Chancellor and President of the City University London between 1998 and 2007, a non-executive director on the Bank of England’s Court of Directors from 2006 to 2009, and Director General and Chief Executive of the Ordnance Survey between 1992 and 1998. He is currently Chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information, of the Bank of England Pension Trustees, of Portsmouth Hospitals’ NHS Trust Board and of the Trustees of the Nuffield Foundation.
  9. Professor David Rhind was educated at Berwick Grammar School, University of Bristol, and University of Edinburgh. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Bristol, City, Durham, Edinburgh, Kingston, London Metropolitan, Loughborough, Southampton, Royal Holloway University of London and from St Petersburg State Polytechnical University.
  10. David Rhind started his career as a Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art (1969-73), followed by academic posts at the University of Durham. He became Professor of Geography at Birkbeck College, University of London in 1982 and was Dean of the Faculty of Economics between 1984 and 1986. Professor Rhind was Vice President of the International Cartographic Association (1984-91), a member of the Government committee on the enquiry into the handling of geographic information (1985-87), and an adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology (1983-84).
  11. Professor David Rhind has authored and contributed to a number of books and articles in the field of geography, map-making and geographic information. Professor Rhind is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Statistical Society. He won the 2007 Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Decade Award for Achievement of the Association for Geographic Information in 1997.Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS
  12. Professor Sir Adrian Smith FRS has been appointed as Deputy Chair of the UK Statistics Authority with responsibility for governance of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Sir Adrian will take up post on 1 September 2012 for a three-year term, in succession to Lord Rowe-Beddoe of Kilgetty. He previously served on the Board of the UK Statistics Authority during 2008 as Deputy Chair (Statistical System) until his appointment to a senior role in the Civil Service. Sir Adrian was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours.
  13. Since December 2010, Professor Sir Adrian Smith has been Director General, Knowledge and Innovation at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). In September 2008, he was appointed to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills as Director General, Science and Research. Sir Adrian will leave BIS this summer to take up the post of Vice Chancellor of the University of London with effect from 1 September 2012.
  14. Sir Adrian Smith was Principal of Queen Mary, University of London between 1998 and 2008, and before that held a number of senior academic and management posts at Imperial College, including Professor of Statistics and Head of the Department of Mathematics. Between 1977 and 1990, he was Professor of Statistics and Head of Department of Mathematics at Nottingham University, and between 1971 and 1977 held posts at the University of Oxford and University College, London.
  15. Sir Adrian was President of the Royal Statistical Society between 1995 and 1997, and won the Society’s Guy Medal in Bronze (1977) and Guy Medal in Silver (1993). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001 in recognition of his contribution to statistics. He has previously acted in various advisory capacities to a number of government departments.
  16. Professor Smith chaired the UK Government’s Inquiry into post-14 Mathematics education, commissioned in 2002, and published its report Making Mathematics Count in 2004. He also led the independent review of crime statistics, commissioned by the then Home Secretary, which reported in 2006, and has authored and contributed to a number of academic books and articles in the field of statistics.
  17. Sir Adrian was educated at Teignmouth Grammar School, Selwyn College, Cambridge, and University College, London. He holds honorary doctorates from City University, the University of Loughborough, Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Plymouth.Dr. David Levy
  18. Dr. David Levy has been appointed as a non-executive member of the Board of the UK Statistics Authority with effect from 1 August 2012 for a two-year term.
  19. David Levy is a Fellow of Green Templeton College and Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism within the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, a post he has held since September 2008. He has recently completed a term as a Visiting Professor at Sciences Po in Paris, and since May 2011 has been a member of the Content Board of the communications regulator, Ofcom. David Levy was also a nonexecutive member of the board of the French broadcaster France 24 from 2009 until earlier this year. David’s areas of expertise include the challenges facing journalism, modernising public service broadcasting, public service reform, the impact of digital technology, and media ownership and regulation both within the UK and Europe.
  20. David Levy spent 20 years in his career at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), latterly as Controller of Public Policy (2000-07), where he led the BBC’s policy for the recent Charter Review and was in charge of public policy and regulation. Prior to that role he was Head of Policy Development and chief adviser and head of European Policy (1995-2000), Editor of BBC Radio 4’s Analysis (1992-94), and a reporter for BBC TV’s Newsnight (1990-92) and Radio 4’s File on Four (1987-90). Before then David Levy was Lecturer in French Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Salford (1985-87).
  21. David Levy was a member of the Science and Media Committee between 2009 and 2010, and in 2008 was appointed by the then President of France to membership of a parliamentary commission to review the future of public service broadcasting in France. In 1996/97, David Levy was a Visitor at Nuffield College, Oxford where he undertook research for his book Europe’s Digital Revolution: Broadcasting regulation, the EU and the nation state (2nd edition 2001). In 2007, he was a visitor to the Center for Global Communications Studies at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
  22. David Levy has written and contributed to a number of books and articles on broadcasting and broadcasting regulation, including The changing business of journalism and its implications for democracy (2010), and The price of plurality: choice, diversity and broadcasting institutions in the digital age (2008).
  23. David Levy was educated at Haberdashers Aske’s Boys’ School, University of York, London School of Economics, and Nuffield College, Oxford.