National Statistician
Encyclopedia
Directors of the UK's Office for National Statistics
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.- Overview :...

 (ONS) also hold the title of National Statistician.

Status

They are de facto Permanent Secretaries
Permanent Secretary
The Permanent secretary, in most departments officially titled the permanent under-secretary of state , is the most senior civil servant of a British Government ministry, charged with running the department on a day-to-day basis...

 but do not use that title. As the ONS incorporated the OPCS
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys
The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys , was created in May 1970 through the merger of the General Register Office and the Government Social Survey Department....

, the Director also became the Registrar General
Registrar General
General Register Office, in England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and many Commonwealth nations, is the government agency responsible for civil registration - the recording of vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages...

 for England and Wales. Following the implementation of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007
Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007
The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established the UK Statistics Authority . It came into force in April 2008. Sir Michael Scholar was appointed as the first Chair of the UKSA....

, the General Register Office
General Register Office
The General Register Office for England and Wales is the section of the UK Identity and Passport Service responsible for the civil registration of births , adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outwith the UK if they involve a UK citizen...

 continues to be part of a ministerially-accountable department, becoming a part of the Identity & Passport Service in the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 and the post of Registrar-General is now held by its head.

Other duties

In addition, the National Statistician is ex officio the Head of the UK Government Statistical Service (GSS), consisting of statisticians working in other departments and branches of government.

National Statisticians

  • The first Director of ONS was Professor Tim Holt
    Tim Holt (statistician)
    David Holt CB is a British statistician who is Professor Emeritus of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton...

    . Subsequent Directors have had this additional title, the National Statistician.
  • The second Director was Len Cook
    Len Cook
    Leonard Warren "Len" Cook, CBE is a professional statistician who was Government Statistician of New Zealand from 1992 to 2000 and National Statistician and Director of the Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom, and Registrar General for England and Wales from 2000 to...

    , who had previously held a similar post in New Zealand.
  • He was succeeded by Karen Dunnell
    Karen Dunnell
    Dame Karen Hope Dunnell, DCB was National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics of the United Kingdom and head of the Government Statistical Service from 1 September 2005 until retiring on 28 August 2009...

     on 1 September 2005.
  • Jil Matheson succeeded Dame Karen Dunnell
    Karen Dunnell
    Dame Karen Hope Dunnell, DCB was National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics of the United Kingdom and head of the Government Statistical Service from 1 September 2005 until retiring on 28 August 2009...

     on 1 September 2009

Current incumbent

Jil Matheson became Director General for Statistics Delivery at the ONS in 2008 with responsibility for the delivery of all ONS statistical operations and outputs, and for the development of the ONS’ statistical portfolio in consultation with users. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Learned Societies in Social Science (2001), and she is also a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...

 and a member of the Social Research Association
Social Research Association
The Social Research Association , founded in 1978, is a British and Irish organisation open to practitioners and researchers interested in all branches of social research. It is a Learned Society member of the UK Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences...

.

Since the inception of the UK Statistics Authority
UK Statistics Authority
The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body operating at arm's length from Government as a non-ministerial department, directly accountable to Parliament...

, the National Statistician is also its chief executive.
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