Population Statistics System Committee

November 2025

Introduction

1. On 1 April 2008, the UK Statistics Authority (the Authority) formally assumed its powers under the Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007). The Authority was given the statutory objective of “promoting and safeguarding the production of publication of official statistics that serve the public good”. At its meeting on 27 February 2025 the Authority agreed to constitute a Population Statistics System Committee.
2. On 17 June 2025 the Authority published its recommendation for a census in 2031 that combines the full coverage provided by a mandatory population survey combined with the growing power of administrative data. On 15 July 2025, the Government commissioned the Office for National Statistics (ONS), to conduct a mandatory, questionnaire-based, whole-population census for England and Wales in 2031.
3. This new Committee will convene for the period covering the Census preparations phase with a check every two years as to whether it is still required and/or whether its Terms of Reference and membership need to be revisited.

Roles and responsibilities

1. The role of the Committee is to assist the programme to facilitate assurance to the Authority Board on progress in line with the agreed programme of work to support the population statistics system including preparation for a census in 2031 and the department realising its strategic intent for the strengthened use of administrative data in partnership with government. Its role is to provide assurance to the Authority Board that its accountabilities are discharged in overseeing progress, direction and providing expertise, challenge and bringing their collective experience.
2. The Committee will advise the Authority Board on delivery of progress at a strategic level in line with the agreed workplan/critical path and success criteria for 2031 and beyond.
3. The Committee will advise the Authority Board on its assessment of the credibility of the plans to deliver a census in 2031 and maintain the preferred direction of travel.
4. The Committee will support ONS to navigate the risks and their mitigations.
5. The Committee will consider a range of strategic issues including the following:
   1. topics covered by the census and the relationship with administrative data;
   2. strategic alignment of the census and administrative data;
   3. assessment of how the proposed approach for inclusion and accessibility meets user needs;
   4. methodological issues on the data collection side of the population survey;
   5. the extent of use of administrative data in the census planning and operations;
   6. issues such as the potential of having a person identifier to support data linkage;
   7. stakeholder and public acceptability;
   8. the supply of administrative data;
   9. acceptability from a UK coherence perspective; and
   10. the use of Artificial Intelligence and digital capability to enhance the efficiency and coverage of the census and publication of estimates.

Chair and membership

1. The Chair of the Committee will be the Authority Deputy Chair.
2. The members of the Committee as agreed by the Authority Board are:
   1. three non-executive directors;
   2. senior government officials representing key suppliers and users of data;
   3. HM Treasury representative;
   4. Relevant experts including:
      • Population Statistics academic expert(s);
      • Digital expert
      • AI expert
      • Inclusion expert
   5. Executive Director for Population Statistics and Census and SRO for the Census Programme; and
   6. National Statistician.
3. Additional attendees and expert members can be invited to attend as needed at the discretion of the Chair including:
   1. Director of Finance Planning and Performance;
   2. Director, Population Statistics Directorate;
   3. Director, Census Directorate; and
   4. Director, Communications and Digital Publishing.
4. External members of the Committee will receive a formal letter of appointment from the Authority Chair, which will specify the terms and conditions of appointment.

Meetings and attendance

1. The Committee will meet bi-monthly.
2. The Committee Chair may convene additional meetings as they are deemed necessary.
3. Committee meetings will be considered quorate when three members are present including the Chair of the Committee or their delegated nominee.
4. Substitutes will not be permitted to attend Committee meeting unless with the express invitation from the Chair of the Committee.
5. The minutes of the meetings are kept by the Committee Secretary. Draft minutes, once approved by the Committee Chair, will be sent to all members.
6. The approval of the minutes of the previous meeting will be on the agenda of every meeting for consideration and approval. Following approval the minutes will be published.

Reporting and relationship to governance

1. The Committee is not the Programme Board. This forms part of executive governance. The Programme Board will be chaired by the SRO for the Census Programme. The wider assurance programme will include oversight by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and as part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio.
2. The Committee will ensure its work does not duplicate work elsewhere in the Authority and will be guided by the priorities of the Authority Board. The Committee will provide the following to the Authority Board:
   1. reports following each meeting of the Committee;
   2. other reports and proposals, as agreed with the Authority Chair;
   3. the Committee will report publicly to the Authority Chair on progress (timeline to be agreed); and
   4. an annual report on the Committee’s activities and the contribution made toward meeting the Authority’s strategic objectives.
3. The Committee through the National Statistician will liaise as needed with the Inter Administration Committee on the work of this Committee.
4. The Committee will receive:
   1. reports against the key milestones and indicators that underpin the agreed success criteria and critical path;
   2. reports on progress on administrative and census including ratification against the maturity matrix;
   3. reports on strategic risks and issues and mitigating actions;
   4. reports from the Methodological Assurance Review Panel;
   5. assessment reports from the Office for Statistics Regulation;
   6. reports on user engagement by the Office for National Statistics; and
   7. an assurance map setting out the overall programme of assurance.
5. The Chair of the Authority Board will report to the Minister of State on delivery as part of regular bilateral meetings.

Review of effectiveness

1. In order to ensure that it continues to add value, the Committee will carry out a review of its effectiveness each year.

Secretariat, Policy & Strategy Division, November 2025

Professor Alison Park

Alison Park is the Deputy Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. Alison oversees ESRC’s data infrastructure portfolio (which includes significant investments in survey, administrative and smart data) and talent and skills funding. She is the SRO for UKRI’s pilot scheme for interdisciplinary research, the cross-research council responsive mode fund.

Alison joined ESRC from UCL, where she was Director of CLOSER, a research collaboration between social science and biomedical longitudinal studies focused on maximising the use, value and impact of longitudinal studies. Previously she worked at NatCen Social Research, where she led research teams which designed, implemented and analysed a wide variety of government and academic studies and evaluations.

Alison was awarded a CBE for services to social sciences in the 2018 New Year Honours and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Ash Smith

Ash Smith is the Director of GOV.UK. He was appointed in September 2024 on an interim basis, joining from his role in GDS as Deputy Director of the GOV.UK One Login programme.

Prior to GDS, Ash was Deputy Director for negotiations strategy and coordination at the Department for Exiting the European Union. He has extensive experience across the Civil Service, having also held a range of strategy, policy, technology and programme delivery positions in the Ministry of Defence, Home Office and Cabinet Office.

Professor Sir David Speigelhalter

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. 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. David is a member of the UK Statistics Authority Board.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter FRS OBE is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge.  He is a regular media commentator on statistical issues, and was very busy over the Covid crisis.  His bestselling book, The Art of Statistics, was published in 2019, and The Art of Uncertainty in 2024.   His career highlights include appearing on Desert Island Discs in 2022, and in 2011 coming 7th in an episode of BBC1’s Winter Wipeout.

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005, awarded an OBE in 2006, and knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society for 2017-2018, and has been a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority since 2020.

Howard Taylor

Howard is a Director in PwC’s Risk and Compliance Transformation Consulting practice who has taken a personal interest in the progression of the conversation on vulnerable customers and what good customer outcomes really mean practically in terms of Consumer Duty. Howard has had a continuous dialogue with the regulators, trade bodies, banks and insurers (pension providers), working on a number of engagements since the emergence of the vulnerable customer agenda with some of the UK’s largest financial services providers. Through this work Howard was asked to sit on the UK Financial Inclusion Commission as a Commissioner, bringing insight from both commercial and policy/regulatory spheres. Howard is a strong advocate of a needs-led and customer-focussed approach to solve the practical challenges faced by consumers. His personal experiences as a wheelchair user provide an added lived experience.

Jane Falkingham

Jane Falkingham is Professor of Demography & International Social Policy and Vice President (International & Global Engagement) at the University of Southampton. She is also the Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC), whose remit is to ‘improve understanding of the drivers and consequences of population change both nationally and globally’. Jane pursues a multi-disciplinary research agenda, located at the interface between population studies and social policy and spanning both developed and developing countries. She has published more than 200 books, journal articles and book chapters, and supervised 30 PhD students to successful completion.

Jane has a long history of service to the Social Science community both in the UK and internationally. From 2017 to March 2022, she was a Member of ESRC Council and chaired the ESRC Grant Delivery Group. She was also the Chair ESRC Covid-19 Rapid Response funding panel and is currently a member of the ADRUK Steering Board. Jane was President of the British Society for Population Studies (2015-2017) and President of the European Association for Population Studies (2018-2020) and is currently Chair of the European Population Information Centre, Population Europe. Jane was elected as a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences in 2011 and the Royal Society of Arts in 2016. In October 2015 she was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to Social Sciences, receiving the honour from Prince William at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Marcus Bell

Marcus Bell is Director of the Office for Equality and Opportunity in the Cabinet Office, which brings together the Government Equalities Office, the Race Disparity Unit, the Disability Unit and the Social Mobility Commission.  He has more than 30 years’ service in civil service policy roles and has worked in the Department for Education, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Ministry of Justice and Cabinet Office.  He has a particular interest in social policy and in improving the use of data and evidence.

Marcus has a background mainly in education and social reform and has worked in the past for the UK Government on schools, teenage pregnancy, drugs, alcohol, children in care, unemployment, geospatial data and prisons.  He has previously been Chair of Governors of a primary school, which he helped lead out of special measures.

Penny Young

Penny Young is the Deputy Chair of the UK Statistics Authority Board. Previously, Penny was the Librarian and Managing Director of Research and Information at the House of Commons, where she oversaw research services for MPs, including the House of Commons Library and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), and had Board level responsibility for information risk. Prior to this she was Chief Executive of the National Centre for Social Research. She holds an MBA from Bradford University.

Sarah Walsh

Dr Sarah Walsh is an Interim Risk Director offering advice to a range of clients in different sectors. She is currently a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority Board. She currently serves as a Non-Executive Director at the Royal College of Nursing Publishing (RCNi), including membership of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Audit Committee and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and as an Independent Non-Executive member of the Audit and Risk Committees for Science Museum Group (SMG), St John’s Ambulance (SJA) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Sarah has 20 years’ generalist experience in Risk and Governance leadership, including Risk Director roles at Telegraph Media Group, Guardian Media Group, Save the Children and Imperial College London.  She also served on the Audit Committee of the ICAEW.  Prior to risk, Sarah worked as an Aerodynamics Researcher and holds a Masters in Astronautics and Space Engineering from Cranfield University and a PhD in Aerodynamics from the University of Manchester. Sarah has a track record in helping organisations understand and manage risks and opportunities in support of achieving and optimising strategic and operational objectives, with expertise in strategy, operations, audit, risk and data governance.

2026

• 28 January
• 25 March
• 20 May
• 29 July
• 30 September
• 25 November

2027

• 27 January
• 24 March
• 26 May
• 28 July
• 29 September
• 24 November

Meeting minutes will appear here once published.