Sharon Witherspoon MBE
Biography
Sharon is a social scientist who specialised in statistical work for practical policy. She served as the Head of Policy of the Academy of Social Sciences from 2016 until 2023. She was Director of the Nuffield Foundation, an endowed charitable trust that makes grants for social and educational research and policy, until 2015. After joining the Nuffield Foundation in 1996 as an assistant director, Sharon became deputy director in 2000 and director in 2012. Her responsibilities included administrative justice and family law; finances for older people including pensions; children and families; and poverty and economics. Sharon was a trustee of Full Fact, a charity that encourages use of accurate statistics in public debate and reporting and Vice President for Education and Statistical Literacy of the Royal Statistical Society.
Appointed: May 2016 (re-appointed July 2019 and extended June 2022)
(re-appointed from March 2024 to August 2024)
Term ends: August 2024
SSRB Member
The Review Body on Senior Salaries provides independent advice to the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Defence, the Secretary of State for Health and the Home Secretary on the pay of: the judiciary; senior civil servants; senior officers of the armed forces; certain senior managers in the NHS; Police and Crime Commissioners; chief police officers; and other such public appointments as may from time to time be specified.