Council, the Society’s board of trustees, met on Wednesday 19th November for their final meeting of the year.
RSS President John Aston began the meeting with a thank you to outgoing trustees and welcomed newly elected and appointed Council members and Officers, who joined the session as observers. The Society thanks the following outgoing individuals for their dedication to its work:
In his review of recent activities, John outlined the work of the Governance Review Working Group so far. He also highlighted the Society’s external work in connection with the recent challenges in the UK statistical system. John noted the interest of the membership, the public and the media in official statistics at this time and thanked the Public Statistics Advisory Group (PSAG, formerly NSAG) in particular for their continued work in the area.
CEO Sarah Cumbers was invited to provide her own update – she shared the success of the 2025 Annual Conference held in Edinburgh as well as an update on the relocation of the RSS headquarters. She noted that the Society continues to progress an interest in a property in Southwark. Sarah also noted that the invigoration of the Real World Data Science platform, led by the Society’s Head of Content Annie Flynn, was going extremely well.
Priorities were reconfirmed for the coming year, and Council approved the budget proposed for 2026. Trustees also approved a new complaints' procedure, code of conduct and disciplinary procedure, which the Society will work to implement in 2026.
Trustees were given an update on Society governance – the level of turnout for Council elections were maintained in 2025 and plans for encouraging more members to nominate either themselves or others next year were shared. Upcoming vacancies were also outlined, and trustees reminded that nominations for the 2026 elections were due to open in early January.
Lucy Teece, Honorary Officer for Sections and Local Groups, joined RSS Member Support Manager Amirah Chaudry in providing an update on section and group activities and introducing their plans for a review to ensure their continued success.
Council will next meet in March, officially welcoming eleven new trustees to its cohort.