The Prime Minister, with the agreement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has approved the appointment of Karen Dunnell as National Statistician and Director of the Office for National Statistics.
Len Cook, the current National Statistician, today made the following statement in response:
"I am delighted that Karen Dunnell, currently an Executive Director in the office, will succeed me as National Statistician and Director of ONS from 1 September. Karen already provides exceptional energy and clear focus to the leadership of ONS. Her record of achievement in British official statistics has been exemplary and will provide a first class foundation for what is now expected of her.
"The next few years will be hugely demanding for the office as it enters the later stages of the modernisation agenda. Karen has been instrumental in providing challenge and direction throughout the modernisation programme and will continue to drive this from the top of the office.
"This is a great appointment. 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 and I'm sure Karen will find it equally rewarding."
BACKGROUND NOTES
Karen Dunnell started her career as a health care researcher with the Institute of Community Studies and then St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. She joined the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) in the mid 1970s carrying out a wide 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 later moved to a central post to help launch National Statistics and plan the arrival of Len Cook, the first National Statistician in 2000. She then became a Group Director in Social Statistics in 2000 and took up her present post on the ONS Executive in 2002. She was responsible for setting up the new "Sources" Directorate, bringing together household and business surveys, the infrastructure that supports them and planning for the 2011 census. She has also launched the ONS Statistical Modernisation Programme.
National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference. (c) Crown copyright 2005.
