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UK appoints veteran academic as national statistician


Britain’s statistical authority has coaxed veteran academic Ian Diamond out of retirement to become the next national statistician after initially failing to fill the post earlier this year.

Sir Ian, who retired last year as vice-chancellor of Aberdeen university, was already a non-executive member of the UK Statistics Authority’s board and was persuaded to head the Office for National Statistics for two years from October.

Having previously been chief executive of the Economic and Social Research Council, Sir Ian’s background as an academic who specialised in design of censuses will come in useful because his appointment will span the planned 2021 10-year count.

David Norgrove, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said: “Ian brings with him enormous professional experience and particular expertise in census design and analysis.”

The ONS said the appointment was fully in line with civil service practices after Sir Ian expressed an interest in the role following the initial recruitment period.

Having struggled to find a candidate who was a statistician, had experience of running large organisations and who could talk to the nation about statistics, the authority welcomed Sir Ian into the role on Tuesday.

Hetan Shah, executive director of the Royal Statistical Society, said Sir Ian was an ideal appointment for the ONS at a difficult time. “Ian Diamond is a great catch for the national statistician role,” he said. “Alongside being a top class statistician he is a visionary about the potential for data. He has unlimited stamina, which he will need to deliver the upcoming census.”

Apart from managing the 2021 census, Sir Ian’s other main task will be to continue to reform UK statistics, seeking to rely less on occasional regular surveys and more on extracting information from administrative data that the government already collects.

As the public face of Britain’s statistical system, he will also come under immediate pressure to respond to the House of Lord’s highly critical report from January on the ONS’s failure to reform the retail prices index of inflation, despite admitting it was wrong and having a legal duty to safeguard the quality of official statistics.

Last month, MPs on the public administration and constitutional affairs committee added to criticism of the governance of statistics, saying the UK’s statistical system lacked independent scrutiny.

In a statement Sir Ian said he was looking forward to “mak[ing] use of rich new data sources to deliver the data decision makers across the UK need”.



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