Council, the Society's trustees, met on 22 March for the first meeting of the 2022 session.
Council members welcomed Anthony Masters, Beverly Hale, Daria Gromyko, Mona Kanaan, Murray Pollock, Richard Emsley, Richard Pugh, Tricia Dodd and Uma Kambhampati to their first Society Council meeting of their four-year term. Council also welcomed Sophie Carr, Eugenie Hunsicker and Steven Gilmour who attended as the new VP for Education and Statistical Literacy, Honorary Officer for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Honorary Officer for Membership respectively.
The Society’s senior management team delivered an update on 2022 activities including a busy schedule of campaigning, including a series of public evidence sessions on Covid-19 from April to October, providing input into the government’s Covid-19 inquiry.
Council agreed the project plan to develop the 2023-2028 Strategic Plan which will begin shortly with the aim for an initial draft of the plan to be discussed with Council in November, and the process completed by June 2023.
Council received an update on the work of the Building Task Force which has met each month since January 2022. The group has been set up to investigate the options for the Society's premises, prompted by a serious damp problem in the basement of Errol Street, rising maintenance costs, and the longer-term implications of the partial shift to remote meetings and working. The task force plans to deliver its recommendations to Council by June this year.
Council members were pleased to approve the appointment of Paul Allin as Honorary Officer for National Statistics and Richard Pugh as Honorary Officer for Membership.
Council seeks nominations for the Audit & Risk Committee Chair which will become vacant in June. Fellows with an interest in the role, or would like to nominate a fellow are to contact Charlotte Stovell at c.stovell@rss.org.uk
Council discussed the recommendations brought forward by Dr Sophie Carr (Vice President of Education & Statistical Literacy) to make alterations to the RSS president nominating process and election to represent the full diversity of the Society membership, and agreed to set up a working group to consider options.
Council approved the development of a new data science journal with Sach Mukherjee as editor and are excited to see the developments of the proposed data science platform in the coming months.
Council members were keen to develop the plans to grow the Society’s training offer and as so have approved the convening of a training working group. Council members have expressed interest and nominated individuals to sit on this working group. Fellows with experience in training and education and would be interested in joining the committee at encouraged to contact Stuart McKendrick at s.mckendrick@rss.org.uk
The membership team updated the Council on the activities being delivered by sections and local groups as part of Blaise Egan’s annual Honorary Officer report. Council were pleased to approve the upgrade of the Teaching Statistics Special Interest Group to a section.
Dr Eugenie Hunsicker was appointed to the role of the newly formed Honorary Officer for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in November 2021 and at her first meeting in post delivered an exciting plan for the EDI governance and strategy for the Society. Council members approved the formation of a EDI governance and strategy task force that will consider improvements to the EDI governance structure across the society, support the design of the 2023-2028 strategic plan and undertake a limited exercise to update the analysis of the Society’s position as regards the Science Council Diversity and Inclusion Framework, building on the work begun on this in 2017 by Scott Keir. The task force will deliver their recommendations to Council in November 2022.
Council members approved their nominations for the 2023 Ordinary Council Member election and approved including an extra position to the election to fill the casual vacancy left by Richard Pugh’s appointment to Honorary Officer; nominees will be contracted shortly with the election due to take place early September 2022.