Report of the Council for the session 2005–2006

For the session ended June 14th, 2006, presented at the One Hundred and Seventy‐second Annual General Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, held at the premises of the Society on June 14th, 2006 President's foreword. This year's annual report shows another successful year for the Society. This is due to the unstinting efforts of a large number of individual volunteers, including in particular our Honorary Officers and also, of course, the staff at Errol Street. On behalf of all Fellows, I wish to express my thanks to everyone involved. It is difficult to summarize all of the activities of the Society but I offer a brief view of some of the highlights. The annual conference held in Cardiff in conjunction with PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry) was a great success with very good attendance and a strong and lively programme. On the topic of meetings and conferences, we were fortunate to have John Hills to present the Beveridge Lecture on the day following the release of the Turner report into the future of pension provision. John spoke with great knowledge, as one would expect, and the lecture was another good occasion in a fine series. One of the major events of the year was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's decision to introduce legislation for the production of national statistics. The Society has long campaigned for this and has, I believe, had a significant impact in getting to this point. However, what is needed is not just legislation but good legislation and the Society is working assiduously to influence the Government and Parliamentarians to ensure that any legislation is as good as can be achieved. The Society has contributed to a very large number of consultations from various governmental bodies; too many to list individually. Apart from the national statistics developments, particular attention should be drawn to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's ‘Futures’ project which is concerned with what the school curriculum might look like in several years. There can be few subjects more important than how we educate the next generation. This year the Society formed two new Study Groups on topics of considerable interest. We look forward to lively programmes from both the Census and the Six Sigma Study Groups. To many of us the award of a new Charter may not seem so significant but it has taken a long time to achieve and we owe a debt of gratitude to Ivor Goddard for steering us between the Scylla of the Privy Council and the Charybdis of the Charity Commission. It has forced us to review and modernize many of our constitutional arrangements and over time will allow us to open up new possibilities. Apart from the conference with PSI, the Society has been involved with other Societies in a wide variety of ways, e.g. co‐operating with the Operations Research Society on a careers open day. Of particular note is the Curriculum Roundtable, initiated by the Society, and involving other disciplines with a statistics component such as geography, biology and economics. This desire to build bridges to other disciplines is reflected in the Society's creation of the Users Forum which was reported on in last year's annual report and which has now held its first, very successful, day conference on ‘Regional and local statistics’. Finally I draw your attention to one initiative which I hope and believe is of great importance. The Society has tried to engage with young statisticians, to involve them in the Society and to find out how we can best meet their needs. A very successful event was held at Errol Street with many more in attendance than we had dared hope. If we can capture the interest and enthusiasm of younger statisticians then, I believe, this will be good for the Society and its activities now and will provide the Fellows who will be the corner‐stone of the Society in the future.