Former RSS honorary secretary, Sidney Rosenbaum, dies

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It is with much regret that we report the death of a former honorary secretary of the Society, Sidney Rosenbaum.
 
Sidney Rosenbaum was one of the longest serving Fellows of the Society, having been elected in 1948. He served as honorary secretary for the Society between 1966 and 1970, remained on Council until 1974 and was a vice-president between 1972 and 1973. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1956.
 
His career in statistics began after serving in the Second World War; he worked in the Directorate of Army Health in the War Office from 1952 and obtained a PhD in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1960. He became a chief statistician at the Treasury and transferred to the Cabinet Office before his final appointment as director of statistics and operational research at the Civil Service College in 1972. After retirement, Sidney worked as a consultant to the DHSS and the Ministry of Technology.
 
Sidney Rosenbaum made a major contribution to our understanding of statistics in the UK with his ‘Report on the use of Statistics in Social Science Research’, published in the Royal Statistical Society’s Series A journal (vol 134, 1971).
 
While an Honorary Secretary of the Society, Sidney also helped create the Guy lecture, a lecture series aimed at sixth form students, which has since become an important feature of the Society’s calendar.
 
A funeral will be held on 27 March on the west side of the New Forest. At Sidney’s request this will be simple and non-religious. If anyone wishes to attend would they kindly inform his son, Michael at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
 

getstats hosts pre-budget event in Houses of Parliament

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The Royal Statistical Society hosted a ‘getstats in parliament’ panel event, the day before the UK’s 2013 budget.
 
Panellists included Labour MP Margaret Hodge, current chair of the Public Accounts Committee; Michael Kell, chief economist of the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO); Paul Moxey, head of risk management at ACCA, the global body for professional accountants; and Professor Tony Travers, public finance expert from the London School of Economics. The meeting was chaired by BBC journalist Paul Lewis, who presents Radio 4’s Money Box programme.
 
The lunchtime event was well-attended, with an audience of 120 people working in parliament, including MPs and their staff. Introducing the event, RSS president John Pullinger explained the aims of the Society’s getstats campaign for better statistical literacy.
 
The panel discussion that followed outlined the problems with accessing and understanding public finance data and official statistics on the economy. The Treasury’s own annual report and accounts were ‘obfuscating’, according to Margaret Hodge. The panel also discussed whether sometime data was simply ‘dumped’ into the public domain without proper explanation, and whether some data collections were needed at all.
 
Professor Travers remained unconvinced that year-to-year comparisons could safely be made from much of the material put out by Whitehall departments, as definitions were often changed or series interrupted, making it impossible to establish what might be changing over time.
 
However, the panel also acknowledged that budget documentation has been improving. The level of detail now available in the Treasury’s Whole of Government Accounts was praised, as was the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), created in 2010 to provide independent and authoritative analysis of the UK’s public finances.
 
Overall, the panel agreed the public needed to be better equipped to handle numbers – confirming the need for the RSS getstats campaign to improve statistical literacy.
 
The event was held in association with ACCA and supported by the House of Commons Library and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Statistics. It was the fourth in a series of on-going ‘RSS-getstats in parliament’ events, aimed at boosting statistical literacy in parliament. Others have focused on crime, health and education. The next parliamentary event is scheduled for 2 July.
 
getstats director, David Walker, has written a more detailed report of the pre-budget event on the getstats blog, which can be found here.
 

Mathematical society launches report on advancing women in mathematics

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The London Mathematical Society (LMS) has launched a report looking into the relative scarcity of women in mathematics, particularly in the higher levels of research and teaching in the UK.
 
The report, Advancing women in mathematics: Good practice in UK university departments, examines the ‘surprisingly small’ proportion of women in the UK who go from an undergraduate degree in mathematics to study for a PhD in the subject. Its findings include the fact that although more than 40 per cent of graduates in the mathematical sciences are female, there is a significant drop-off in the proportion of women who become academic mathematicians (6 per cent of mathematics professors in the UK are female).
 
The report also provides insight into areas of good practice and aims to provide inspiration for mathematics departments in universities to address the gender imbalance – an area that is expected to become increasingly important light of the recent statement by the UK Research Councils on Expectations for Equality and Diversity.
 
The report was launched at the House of Commons at the end of February, in an event hosted by MPs Andrew Miller, Stephen Metcalfe, (both members of the Science and Technology Committee) and Julian Huppert (member of the Home Affairs Select Committee). Margaret Wright, from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, was guest speaker.
 
The report is available to view on the LMS website (opens as pdf) and hard copies are also available. Further information on the work of the LMS Women in Mathematics Committee is available here.
 

RSS Excellence awards: nominations now open

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Entries may now be made to the Society’s awards for statistical excellence, both in the fields of journalism and in official statistics.
 
The RSS Statistical Excellence in Official Statistics awards reward good practice by statisticians in the many departments, administrations and agencies which produce official statistics. Government statisticians produce and interpret essential information on key areas such as the economy, schools and healthcare – for politicians, businesses and the public alike, and these awards specifically focus on those who meet the needs of the wider user community.
 
The aim of the award is to recognise outstanding innovations or developments that improve the service to users. Nominations from members are now sought; eligible examples should be dated between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2012
 
The RSS Statistical Excellence in Journalism awards recognise excellence in journalists’ use of statistics in order to question, analyse and investigate issues that affect society at large. The awards are made in three categories: print, online and broadcast (radio or TV), and must have been published or broadcast for the first time in the past year (January-December 2012). Previous winners include Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times, Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian’s Datablog, Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ programme and Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News.
 
RSS fellows who saw or heard good use of statistics in the media in 2012 are asked to send details to the RSS office or contact the journalist directly to encourage an entry. The Society stresses that entries don’t have to be statistically complex; indeed, a key consideration is the extent to which statistical information has been explained in an accessible way to the general public.
 
 
Full entry conditions and entry forms are on the relevant pages of the RSS website from (all of which can be linked to from here). The deadline for all entries is 5pm on Friday, 24 May 2013.
 

UK Data Service website launches

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The newly formed UK Data Service launched its website, ukdataservice.ac.uk, on 21 March 2013.
 
An initiative of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the UK Data Service was established in October 2012 and brings together a number of different established data services: the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), the Secure Data Service, census.ac.uk and the Survey Question Bank.
 
The aim of the website is to provide a wide range of social and economic data for social researchers and other interested parties. Among the data provided are large-scale government surveys, international macrodata, business microdata, qualitative studies and census data from 1971 to 2011.
 
Simon Briscoe, of the Service’s governing board, explains the role of the new website in the April edition of RSSNEWS. The article can also be read here.
 
 

Statistics Authority to investigate public sector borrowing figures

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UK Statistics Authority chair Andrew Dilnot has resolved to look into the treatment in official statistics of cash transfers from the Bank of England to the treasury.
 
Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financial Times, wrote to Andrew Dilnot  on 21 March expressing his concern over how transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund to the treasury will be reflected in Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNBex) figures – figures whose underlying principle is ‘to show the underlying state of the public finances without temporary distortions’. Giles had previously expressed his concern in the Financial Times about the issue, previously covered by RSS eNews.
 
Chris Giles calls the current situation ‘flawed’ and believes it ‘will lead to a serious distortion in the measurement of the underlying health of the public finances which runs counter to the national interest’.
 
In his reply, Andrew Dilnot resolved to look into the matter. A non-executive member of the Authority will prepare a short report for the Authority Board, which is expected to be published by the end of May.
 
The RSS welcomes this move. ‘The UK Statistics Authority is showing that it will scrutinise the ONS as closely as it will any other body,’ said Hetan Shah, executive director. The recent report from the Public Administration Select Committee indicated there is a danger that the Authority will be seen as treating the ONS more leniently due to the Authority having a dual function here.’
 
He continued: ‘This intervention helps to show that this is not the case, thus maintaining trust in our statistical system.’
 
The correspondence between Chris Giles and Andrew Dilnot has been published on the UKSA website.
 

Former RSS president appointed to UK Statistics Authority board

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Former RSS president, Professor David Hand, is to take up the post of non-executive director at the UK Statistics Authority for three years, from 1 April 2013.
 
David was President of the Royal Statistical Society for two terms, 2008-09 and 2010. He is still very active in the Society, being current chair of the Society’s National Statistics Advisory Group as well as director of the Society’s National Statistics theme. 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.
 
David is joined by Carolyn Fairbairn, who is also appointed to the Statistics Authority board. Carolyn is currently a non-executive director of Lloyds Banking Group and Vitec Group plc, and a Trustee of Marie Curie Cancer Care. She was also a non-executive director of the Financial Services Authority from 2008 to 2011.
 
Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK statistics Authority, said he was ‘delighted’ with the appointments. ‘Carolyn and David bring with them enormously varied professional insights from the world of statistics and the media and beyond,’ he said. ‘These will be of great benefit to us all on the Statistics Authority Board. I am very much looking forward to welcoming them both.’
 

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