New Head for UK Government Statistics Body

Karen Dunnell is to succeed Len Cook as the UK's National Statistician and Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Dunnell is currently an Executive Director at the ONS. Her appointment was approved last week by the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Dunnell started her career as a healthcare researcher with the Institute of Community Studies and then at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. She joined the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) in the mid 1970s, carrying out a range of national surveys and managing medical statistics. When OPCS merged with the Central Statistical Office to form the ONS, she became the Director of Demography and Health Statistics. She was made a Group Director in Social Statistics in 2000, and took up her present post on the ONS Executive in 2002. She set up the new 'Sources' Directorate, which brings together household and business surveys, and also launched the ONS Statistical Modernisation Programme.

In her new role, Dunnell will take responsibility for the new UK Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity (UKCeMGA), a separate ONS directorate launched last month (www.mrweb.com/drno/news/4343.htm ) by Len Cook.

Cook says he is 'delighted' by the decision to appoint Dunnell as his replacement, stating that she 'already provides exceptional energy and clear focus to the leadership of ONS'. He looks back with satisfaction: 'There is nothing over the past five years I could have done which I would have enjoyed more than being National Statistician and Director of the ONS.'

The ONS is online at www.statistics.gov.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.