Event

How to stop bad data driving out the good in an age of misuse, misleadingness and misinformation

4 March 2019, 5:30pm

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The 2019 CSaP Annual Lecture was held in collaboration with the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication.
Speaker: Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation at the UK Statistics Authority, and a CSaP Policy Leaders' Fellow.

4 March 2019

St John’s College, Divinity School, Main Lecture Theatre


Fake news, post truth, mistrust of experts... a familiar roll call of anxieties – or perhaps clichés – about our data rich world. They point to an underlying fear that in this data abundant age the bad data drives out the good and we are left with a broken public discourse.

The UK Statistics Authority is the champion of statistics and data serving the public good – to allow the good data to shine out and be used, appropriately and with confidence, to inform the public.

Ed Humpherson discussed the UKSA’s role in this data rich environment and highlighted the central role of trustworthiness.

Please click the link below to view the lecture:


Ed Humpherson was appointed as Director General for Regulation in October 2013 and took up post in January 2014. Prior to joining the Authority, Ed was a Board Member and Executive Leader for Economic Affairs at the National Audit Office, a post he held since July 2009. This role included responsibility for the overall strategic direction of NAO’s work on economic affairs.

Amongst other previous responsibilities, Ed oversaw the NAO’s response to the recent financial crisis through building capability in capital markets and financial services work. He also coordinated the NAO’s programme of work on the administration of the tax system and the welfare system; led the NAO’s work on public private partnerships and major infrastructure developments, including in transport and energy; and oversaw the development of the NAO’s audit of the Whole of Government Accounts.

Between 2007 and 2009, Ed Humpherson was Assistant Auditor General, and before that was NAO’s Director of Regulation between 2003 and 2007. Ed joined the National Audit Office in 1993.

Ed Humpherson was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he obtained a first-class MA honours degree in Politics and Economic History. He is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.