SPEaR Chair and Secretariat
SPEaR Chair
The new SPEaR Chair is Len Cook formerly New Zealand Government Statistician 1992 to 2000 and National Statistician and Director of the Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom and the Registrar General of England and Wales from 2000 to 2005.
After joining the New Zealand Department of Statistics in 1971, he was appointed variously as Assistant Government Statistician in 1982, and Deputy Government Statistician in 1986. Len Cook was a member of the Royal Commission on Social Policy in New Zealand in 1987/88, and a member of the secretariat of the Prime Minister's Task Force on Tax Reform in 1981/82.
He has a particular interest in social policy, demography, statistical methodology, and the application of information technology in statistical systems. He is interested in the promotion of research methodology in public policy analysis and decision-making, with past interests particularly in retirement provision and taxation policies.
Professional and other involvement
He is a member of the Royal Statistical Society, the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS), the International Association of Official Statisticians (IAOS) and the International Statistics Institute. He is a long-standing member of the New Zealand Statistical Association, the New Zealand Association of Economists, and the New Zealand Population Association. He has been a regular contributor of invited papers of these bodies.
Past activity when in New Zealand, included being chair of the Chief Executives' information technology steering committee, chair of the board of New Zealand Government Online, and a member of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust Board.
Len has also been a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
SPEaR Secretariat
SPEaR Project Advisor
As the Project Advisor, Christina Smits is responsible for organising the SPEaR Linkages Funding Rounds, SPEaR Events and Committee meetings. She also monitors the progress of funded projects, and assists in keeping the website updated. Christina is an experienced project administrator with over ten years organising research projects as well as planning and coordinating the Teaching and Learning Research Initative since its conception in 2003. A geology/geography graduate from Victoria University, Christina also has a Trinity College of London certificate in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and has been teaching English to migrants and refugees since 2002.
Senior Analyst
Currently vacant
Previous SPEaR Chair's
Professor Richard Bedford (2004/5 to 2007/8) has completed his term as independent Chair and has recently been appointed to the Marsden Fund Committee. He is Professor of Geography and Convenor of the Migration Research Group at the University of Waikato, and Director of the Tertiary Education Commission funded Building Research Capability in the Social Sciences (BRCSS).
The first independent Chair, Dr Arthur Grimes (2001/2 to 2004/5) is an non-executive director of the Reserve Bank, a Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust and an adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Waikato.
