The Office for Statistics Regulation provides independent regulation of all official statistics produced in the UK. Our team work across a number of regulatory domains and functions, overseen by a senior leadership team. Our What we do page has more detail.
Our Senior Leadership Team
Ed Humpherson – Head of the Office for Statistics Regulation
Ed joined the team as Director General for Regulation in January 2014. More biographical information about Ed.
Rob Kent-Smith – Deputy Head
Rob joined the team in 2023 and is responsible for driving OSR’s development as a regulator, focusing on strategy, capability and impact, and how we secure positive change in the statistics system. For a decade Rob worked as an economist at the Office for National Statistics in a variety of roles, this most recently included leading the production and transformation of the National Accounts and GDP. Prior to joining OSR, Rob was on loan to the Welsh Government for two years leading the transport strategy and policy division.
Siobhan Tuohy-Smith – Assessment Programme Lead
Siobhan re-joined the team in 2021. She heads up our assessment programme and leads on the design, use and deployment of our regulatory tools to drive improvement and compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. Siobhan previously worked as a statistics regulator and led the Labour Market and Welfare and Population and Society domains. She also led on the development of the Code of Practice for Statistics v2.0. Prior to joining (and re-joining) OSR, she has held a range of statistical production, regulatory and policy roles across government departments and in local government. She has also led on the delivery of analytical tools and outputs in the private and research sectors.
Helen Miller-Bakewell – Head of Development and Impact
Helen joined the team in 2022 and has oversight of our research and innovation work and leads the Research function, the Policy and Standards function and the Data and Methods function. Helen joined the Government Statistical Service, from academia, in 2013. She worked as a producer of statistics in three government departments before joining OSR (for the first time!) as a statistical regulator in 2019.
Gail Rankin – Systemic Review Programme Lead
Gail joined the team in August 2019 to head up our systemic review programme. Gail’s background is in engineering, and she started her career with Network Rail in project management and process improvement (six sigma) roles. In 2013, Gail moved into local government and has experience through leadership roles in data and performance management and business planning.
Nicky Pearce – Head of Casework
Nicky joined the team in February 2022 and is based in the Newport office. She is covering Head of Casework whilst Elise is on maternity leave. She started her career in the Office for National Statistics where she worked on a wide range statistics across inflation, environmental accounts and social surveys. Following the ONS, Nicky spent some time at the Office for Students before joining the OSR. Most recently, Nicky led our Children, Education and Skills domain.
Elise Rohan– Head of Casework (currently on maternity leave)
Elise re-joined the team in 2023, to oversee OSR’s statistics casework. Elise previously worked as a statistics regulator and led the Labour Market and Welfare domain. Prior to joining OSR, she worked in a range of statistical production and policy-facing roles in the Cabinet Office, Department for Work and Pensions, and Office for Manpower Economics. In 2022, Elise was on loan to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs for a year as the Head of Environmental Indicators, Statistics and Reporting.
For general enquiries for the Office for Statistics Regulation, or to contact our Domain teams, please complete the form below. If you would like to raise a concern related to the production and use of statistics, please see our Raise a Concern pages.