UK Statistics Authority appoints three to board

Ministers have appointed the new non-executive directors to each serve a four-year term ending in February 2027. An assessment panel led by the Statistics Authority’s chair, Robert Chote, recommended the three appointments.

Penny Young was the librarian and managing director of research and information at the House of Commons until August 2022, overseeing research services for MPs, including the House of Commons Library and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (Post). Prior to that, she was chief executive of the National Centre for Social Research between 2009 and 2015.

Jacob Abboud is managing partner of Petraenovus Consulting and previously held board-level positions at Legal & General, Allianz Insurance and AXA UK & Ireland. He is currently a non-executive director at the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Economist Carol Propper specialises in workforce and health statistics, and is currently professor of economics at Imperial College Business School in London and Monash University in Melbourne.

David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University, has also been re-appointed to the board for a second three-year term from May 2023.

Robert Chote, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said: “I am delighted to welcome Jacob, Carol and Penny to the authority’s board, and to have David re-appointed. Their knowledge and experience will be hugely valuable to the board in offering support and challenge to the Office for National Statistics, the Office for Statistics Regulation and the Government Statistical Service, the three pillars of the UK’s official statistical system.”