Two new appointments have been made to the Board of the UK Statistics Authority - Carolyn Fairbairn and Professor David Hand.

Carolyn Fairbairn and Professor David Hand have been appointed as Non-Executive Directors of the UK Statistics Authority for three years from 1st April 2013.

The appointments were the subject of an open recruitment exercise following the Code of Practice set out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Professor Hand is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London. He was previously Professor of Statistics at Imperial College (1999-2011) during which time he was also Head of the Mathematics in Banking and Finance Programme (2005-09). Since 2010, he has served as Chief Scientific Adviser to Winton Capital Management.

Professor Hand was President of the Royal Statistical Society for two terms (2008-09 and 2010) and is currently an external member of the UK Statistics Authority’s Committee for Official Statistics. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, a member of the UK Strategic Forum for the Social Sciences, and a member of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He won the Royal Statistical Society’s Guy Medal in Silver in 2002 and was awarded the OBE for services to Research and Innovation in the New Year Honours in 2013.

Notes to editors

The UK Statistics Authority was established on 1 April 2008 by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, with a statutory objective to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, and the quality and comprehensiveness of, and good practice in relation to, official statistics across the UK.

The remuneration for the Non-Executive Director is £15,000 per annum for two days per month.

All appointments are made on merit, and political activity plays no part in the selection process. In accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity (if any is declared) to be made public. Carolyn Fairburn was a member of the Downing Street Policy Unit as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister, advising on Health and Social Services Policy (1995-1997).