Our structure

Resources

Our budget for 2021/22 is approximately £3.1 million. Our budget has been rolled forwards from 2020/21 but allowing for the recruitment of an additional Grade 6 – to extend our Senior Leadership Team to reflect the expansion in our organisation and ambitions in recent years – and an additional placement student.

Our team of 47 people (44.3 FTE) is based across sites in London, Newport, and Edinburgh. Our team is demonstrating that it can operate highly effectively from home but our capacity will potentially be reduced for at least part of 2021/22 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our work programme priorities will be adjusted accordingly and stakeholders kept informed through our website.

Our organisation

Our domains

Through our ten regulatory domains, our statistics regulators engage with users and producers of statistics, identify risks around the potential misuse of statistics and intervene in a timely way, and manage programmes of work to deliver on our priorities. We work flexibly across our domains, drawing on support from across domains and from our statistical methods expert as needed. During 2020/21 our Health and Social Care and Population and Society domains worked closely together with a focus on statistics related to the pandemic.

For a list of projects which are programmed for each domain please refer to our Regulatory Work Programme. You may also visit the domain pages on our website where you can find more information on live projects and contact details. Our domains are:

• Agriculture, energy and environment
• Business, trade and international development
• Children, education and skills
• Crime and security
• Economy
• Health and social care
• Housing, planning and local services
• Labour market and welfare
• Population and society
• Travel, transport and tourism

Functions

Complementing our domain activities, we have four key functions that help drive forward our ambitions. Common elements to these functions are that they are innovation-led and that they broaden our reach – both in the way we gather and process intelligence and the way that we share what we have learned with our stakeholders. Each of these functions are supported by our team of regulators.

• Research – Leading a better understanding of the public good is the foundation of our vision. We can’t deliver on our vision of statistics that serve the public without a proper understanding of what this means.
• Automation and technology – Our Automation and Technology programme underpins all parts of our mission statement. There are two dimensions to our programme, providing intelligence to our regulators and exploring data use.
• Insight – Our Insight function has strategic oversight of how OSR uses intelligence and data to deliver on our vision. Insight aims to support OSR in drawing together the findings and learning from all our different outputs and engagements, finding the common themes, identifying emerging issues, and filtering the priorities.
• Policy and standards – Our policy and standards function maintains the Code of Practice for Statistics and the associated policies and guidance and leads on promoting and supporting adoption of the Code across the UK.

Senior Leadership Team

OSR is led by the Director General for Regulation, Ed Humpherson. The Director General is supported by a leadership team which includes:

• Deputy Director for Regulation – leads the London site and oversees our business and resource planning, including the wellbeing and development of our team. Also oversees our casework, automation and technology, and leads engagement in Northern Ireland. Domain sponsor for Health and Social Care and Population and Society domains.
• Head of Newport Site – oversees our Assessment and Compliance Check programmes and engagement in Wales. Domain sponsor for Business, Trade and International Development, Economy, Labour Market and Welfare and Travel, Transport and Tourism domains.
• Head of Edinburgh Site – oversees our Systemic Review programme and engagement in Scotland. Domain sponsor for Agriculture, Energy and Environment, Children, Education and Skills, Crime and Security, and Housing, Planning and Local Services domains.
• New Grade 6 currently being recruited.

Support functions for the team are:

• Private Office – Private Office supports the Director General for Regulation and coordinates our Casework Programme.
• Public Affairs and Digital Communications – This team oversees OSR’s communications strategy and provides the Director General and his team with expert communications support and advice. The team also lead our website, publishing and social media strategy.
• Regulation Programme Support – This team supports OSR business and resource planning, and management of our work programme. The team also provides local business support across all our sites.

Find out more about our team.