Simon Briscoe,

Between 1981 and 1987, Simon Briscoe worked at the Central Statistical Office, H. M. Treasury and the EU in Brussels in a variety of positions.

Between 1987 and 1999, he worked in the research function of several investment banks in London - as UK Economist at Greenwell Montagu, (now HSBC), bond analyst at Warburg Securities (now UBS) and as Chief Economist and Managing Director of Research (including equity, bond and FX analysis) at Nikko Europe. During that time he achieved a number of top rankings in the Institutional Investor and Extel surveys.

Since 1999, Simon has been Statistics Editor at The Financial Times, London, where he is responsible for the delivery of market information into the paper, managing a team of statistical researchers and writing on statistics topics.

In addition, he was author of ‘Interpreting the Economy’, a guide to the UK economy published in 2000 by Penguin. He won the Society of Business Economists annual essay prize in 2002. He will have a book published in early 2005 on the political use of statistics.

He was on the Council of the Royal Statistical Society between 1998 and 2003 and chair of its Official Statistics Section between 2000 and 2003. He sat on the Statistics Advisory Committee of the ONS between 1996 and 1999 and has been an adviser for the Treasury Committee (of the House of Commons). He sat on the Council of the Society of Business Economists and was inaugural Chairman of Financial Statistics Users' Group in the late 1990s.

In addition, he was author of ‘Interpreting the Economy’, a guide to the UK economy published in 2000 by Penguin. He won the Society of Business Economists annual essay prize in 2002. He will have a book published in early 2005 on the political use of statistics. It should become In addition, he is author of ‘Interpreting the Economy’, published in 2000 by Penguin, and 'Britain in Numbers' a statistical review of the UK and analysis of how statistics are used in politics, published by Politico's in 2005. He won the Society of Business Economists annual essay prize in 2002.