Bill McLennan (1942–2022)
本文是比尔·麦克伦南的讣告，他曾在澳大利亚和英国领导官方统计机构，推动了统计立法、技术应用和国际合作，对官方统计发展有重要影响。
Bill McLennan, a former Australian Statistician who had also headed the UK Government Statistical Service, died on 19 March 2022 at the age of 80. Bill McLennan was born in 1942 in Grafton, New South Wales. His childhood was spent in a rural village. Bill moved with his family to the industrial city of Wollongong as a child and his father died not long afterwards. Bill's family would have found it tough during these formative years, but it clearly had a big influence on his approach to life and work. He was quick to understand the issues that were really important, clear on his goals and tenacious in achieving them. He never backed away from an argument if that was necessary to come to a common understanding. Despite the impression of being a hard head, he was very empathetic to his staff when they had personal issues. He joined the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (which become the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 1975) in 1960 as a statistics cadet. Bill gained a degree in Statistics and Economics from the Australia National University and started working at the Bureau full time in 1964. He spent all his career there, apart from his time in United Kingdom. Initially he worked as a mathematical statistician on sampling and methodology, rising to become head of branch in 1973 at a remarkably young age. Bill helped to expand the capability of the ABS to conduct a greatly enhanced population survey program. This had a big and long-standing influence on the availability of social statistics in Australia. Early in his career, Bill's strong leadership qualities were recognised and subsequent postings nurtured that potential and broadened his experience. In the policy coordination area of the ABS, he worked closely with the Executive and led significant changes to statistics legislation. He headed the ABS office in Victoria for a year before further promotion to take charge of the Coordination and Management Division in head office. Bill oversaw the establishment of the corporate planning system, leading to the production of ABS's first Corporate Plan in 1987. He also had oversight of the introduction of the data management function. He was intimately involved in the management of the move of all ABS systems to a new mainframe environment and subsequently, despite considerable resistance by IT professionals at the time, the use of microcomputers and internet technologies. Bill championed these developments because he could see opportunities to reduce costs and improve flexibility in administrative and statistical activities. In 1986, Bill was appointed Deputy Australian Statistician with Ian Castles being the Australian Statistician at the time. In effect, with Ian's approval, Bill became the Chief Executive whilst Ian focused on his special interests although they worked closely together especially on the more significant issues. Throughout this period, the ABS earned a very strong reputation both within Australia and externally for how it was managed, its effective use of technology and for the quality of its outputs. Bill deserves much of the credit. In 1987, ABS was given the choice of taking sizeable budget cuts or raising the equivalent in revenue from sales of products and services. Bill chose the latter, seizing the opportunity to focus on the needs of users of ABS products. With a more professional approach to product design, marketing and service delivery, the changes resulted in a very substantial improvement in the ABS's customer focus and the services and products it provided. In 1992, Bill was appointed Director of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and head of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) of the United Kingdom, the first person from outside the United Kingdom to hold this post. The UK statistical system had been through a challenging period. Bill's arrival signalled a much stronger role for the office. Bill brought with him his passion for statistical presentation and marketing. He recognised the fundamental role of official statistics for democracy and that the work of the GSS needed to be better understood. He was instrumental in an important paragraph in a Government White Paper that speaks of open access to official statistics both providing a picture of society and offering a ‘window on the work and performance of government itself’. Bill persuaded the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, to reduce ministerial access to economic statistics in advance of publication and to permit statistics to be released independently of ministers. He produced the Official Statistics Code of Practice, first published in April 1995, which set good practice and principles for statisticians producing official statistics with the aim of promoting high standards and maintaining public confidence in official statistics. He led the CSO through its early years as a 'Next Steps Agency' with demanding and quantified targets for the accuracy of statistics. During his tenure, he proposed the merger of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the CSO into the Office for National Statistics, and gained agreement for this from Prime Minister John Major. Bill was also active in ensuring that the United Kingdom took a major role in shaping the agenda for harmonisation of European Union statistics. Bill's time in United Kingdom was relatively short, at 3 years, but he certainly left UK statistics in a different and much improved state from when he started, notably in that the remit of the ONS was clearly established as serving government and the wider community. Many existing arrangements in UK statistics are due to initiatives he undertook. They reflect his understanding of what is really important for a national statistical office and his skill at looking through a mass of information and working out what is really important. In 1995, Bill returned to Australia to become Australian Statistician. Bill's many achievements and strong leadership style are typified by the shift to disseminating statistics through the internet and the website. His legacy here was the need to really understand the market and not to simply follow the latest fad. Other examples are the development of the first Certified Agreement between the ABS and its employees, linking wages and salaries to productivity outcomes, and in making greater use of administrative data for statistical purposes. Bill had a special interest in the development of staff. He also pushed ABS to take a constructive interest in the statistical activities of other government agencies. This led to the establishment of the National Statistical Service. As Deputy Australian Statistician, Bill had developed a stronger interest in international statistical activities. He personally led a reawakening of the relationship with Statistics New Zealand and later took leadership roles across the Asian Pacific region more widely, with the ESCAP Committee of Statistics and the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific. The ABS's International Centre was named in Bill's honour in recognition of the much closer relationships he built with statistical agencies in the region. Bill was elected Chairman of the United Nations Statistical Commission from 1994 to 1995. It was during this time that the Commission endorsed the first version of the Fundamental Principles for Official Statistics. Bill retired as Australian Statistician in 2000. He was awarded a CBE and an AM for significant contributions to UK and Australian statistics respectively. He remained active for a number of years after retirement, including with statistical consultancies in several countries. Bill also chaired the Assessment Review Panel advising the Government on compensation claims following the collapse of HIH, one of Australia's largest insurance companies. Bill always had plenty of interests outside work. He was an avid reader and a very capable sportsman, representing the Australian Capital Territory at both rugby and squash. In more recent years, his focus was on golf. He loved Australia and travelled it widely, especially the rural and remote areas. He bought a motor home which he used frequently, usually accompanied by the golf sticks and always some good quality red wine.