News story

UK Statistics Authority: board appointments

Nora Nanayakkara and Sian Baldwin have been appointed as non-executive members of the UK Statistics Authority.

Nora Nanayakkara and Sian Baldwin have been appointed as non-executive members of the UK Statistics Authority Board, starting from 1 July 2016 for 3 years.

Biographies of new board members

Nora Nanayakkara

Since 2009, Nora has been Non-Executive Director of Nominet, the technology company that manages the .uk domain name registry. In 2013, she was appointed to the steering board of the Intellectual Property Office, the official UK government body responsible for intellectual property rights. In this role, she focuses particularly on the organisation’s digital agenda.

Nora also sits as an independent Non-Executive Director of the inaugural Audit and Assurance Board of the National Police Chiefs Council and serves on its performance sub-committee. She contributes to the regulation of the dental profession through her role as a Lay Fitness-to-Practice Panellist at the General Dental Council. Nora has also been appointed as a subject matter expert to several working groups at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the global coordinating and policy-making body of the domain name system.

Prior to 2009, Nora developed her career in the digital and technology start-up sector and has worked in digital service and programme delivery operations management. She completed an MBA in 2007.

Sian Baldwin

From 2004 until 2014 Sian held a number of senior positions at BT. Most notably, she was responsible for BT’s wholesale broadband portfolio. She has held a number of chief information officer and digital strategy roles at BT and subsequently at Clarks, spanning both large infrastructure and consumer facing technologies and business models.

Alongside a background in data analytics systems, Sian’s main area of specialism is how to bring about significant technology transformation, where cultural, employee and customer transformation are required in parallel.

Sian studied artificial intelligence at Sussex University and management at Harvard Business School.

Notes to editors

The Statistic Authority’s statutory objective is to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It is also required to promote and safeguard the quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics, and ensure good practice in relation to official statistics.

The authority’s functions relate to its statutory areas of responsibility including:

  • oversight of the UK official statistics system, which includes around 30 central government departments and the devolved administrations, and the promotion, safeguarding and monitoring of quality, comprehensiveness and good practice in relation to all official statistics, wherever produced

  • production of a code of practice for statistics and assessment of official statistics against the code

  • governance of the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s national statistical institute and the largest producer of official statistics

Published 8 June 2016