The House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) has approved the appointment of Sir Robert Chote as the new chair of the UK Statistics Authority. Sir Robert was the government’s preferred candidate and faced questions from PACAC last week on his priorities for the role as well as the challenges facing the UK statistical system.
Robert was previously the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility. He has been involved with the Society as chair of our ‘getstats’ public literacy campaign, which launched in 2010. He will take over as chair of UKSA from Sir David Norgrove who has been in the post since 2017. The RSS has regularly engaged with UKSA since it was established in 2008, to oversee the ONS and maintain a national code of practice for official statistics.
Stian Westlake, commenting on the news said: ‘Robert Chote is a great choice for chair of the UK Statistics Authority and I’m pleased PACAC has approved his appointment. Not only is he committed to ensuring government produces trustworthy and robust statistics, he also truly values the importance of statistical literacy both amongst decision-makers and the general public.’