March 2018 Meeting: Sir Andrew Dilnot

Numbers and public policy: why the statistics really do matter

Statistics and their analysis and use (and abuse) are a central part of our lives, and perhaps more so now that they are so readily available and communicated. It is easy to be cynical or frustrated about the nature of debate on public policy, but Andrew Dilnot will argue that statistics and statistical analysis offer enormous insight, and at their best are a great encouragement to the precision in thinking that is essential if we are to make sensible decisions about policy matters.
Sir Andrew Dilnot is Warden of Nuffield College Oxford. He was Chairman of the UK
Statistics Authority from 2012 to 2017, and was the Chairman of the Commission on the
Funding of Care and Support, which reported in 2011. He was Principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford from 2002 to 2012 and a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 2005 to 2012.
Sir Andrew was Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 1991 to 2002. He was the
founding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s series on the beauty of numbers, ‘More or Less’ and has presented two series of programmes on Radio 4 ‘A History of Britain in Numbers’.
Sir Andrew has served on the Social Security Advisory Committee, the National Consumer Council, the Councils of the Royal Economic Society, and Queen Mary and Westfield College, as a trustee of the Nuffield Foundation, and as chairman of the Statistics Users Forum of the Royal Statistical Society. He holds Honorary Doctorates from City University and The Open University, and a City and Guilds Fellowship.