New Zealand Statistical Association Newsletter 57
March 2003
Len Cook in London
From The New Zealand Listener, 17-23 May
Reproduced with the kind permission of the Editor
When Len Cook told British TV late last year that the country's latest
Census results were "the most accurate picture possible of our population", he
copped it. Overnight, New Zealand's former chief statistician and now the UK's
top number cruncher (or National Statistician and Registrar General for England
and Wales, to employ his official title) became a media target: the results,
they claimed, were far from accurate - a million Britons were simply unaccounted
for! Councils, which rely on Census results for their slice of the government's
annual grant, were frothing. Legal action was threatened. Cook was
feeling the heat.
"It's the one thing my experience in New Zealand didn't equip me for," he concedes about the still-unresolved dispute. "I've had to become a lot more resilient in terms of the intensity of media debate. Here when you get something wrong, it really is 'off with your head'! The challenge is remembering that I can't give as good as I get."
Cook's style was once described as "earthy" - has he modified it for the even greyer environs of the British public service? "I'm told I've enhanced the language of the weekly permanent secretary group in the British Government a little. Ha ha!" They must like him, though - his contract has been extended until 2005.
"In a British public administration, people are less likely to be blunt than they are in an antipodean environment," he says. "I've decided I was appointed because of what I am, so I haven't made huge efforts to change. You can get away with things because you come from a different culture, and you should take advantage of that, because people have an expectation that you'll do things differently.
"If my colleagues want to criticise a presentation, most spend the first two or three minutes thanking people and telling them how great it is before getting to the point. I just get to the point. Sometimes you see faces drop when people feel they're being damaged for life, when all you're doing..." He trails off - a habit throughout the interview that betrays a butterfly mind brimming with information and ideas - before finishing, "People take a while to get used to the other side of being reasonably quick off the mark - the fact you're moving on to something else."
A little Kiwi self-deprecation, he suggests, goes a long way. “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you miss out on a lot of good jokes. And a sense that how you treat people who are least important is perhaps one of the most important ways of judging other people.
"I had an interview today with a guy from the British media who knew one of my press officers was here. He finished by saying, ‘Well, you’ll get one of your flunkies to do that.’ And I thought, basically, ‘Stuff you’ - you know, that sort of absolutely dorkish behaviour."
Cook was born in Dunedin in 1949. Dux of his local school, he did a BA (Hons) in maths and stats at Otago University before joining the Department of Statistics in 1971. His New Zealand bonds remain strong: he says he has only missed one family Christmas dinner - in 1985. “Shirley [his partner of 20 years] and I went tramping in Abel Tasman Park. But every other year we’ve always got together.
"From a distance, you get a sense New Zealand is undervalued in how it presents itself. Those involved in public policy need a broader world view on the importance of communities that are cohesive but diverse and the integrity of the environment. We’ve long been receivers of migrants and have a remarkable capacity to absorb people who are different. You can see that by the ease with which New Zealanders cope with all sorts of different communities and cultures. That must be an immense strength.
"Add to that the environmental richness - in some ways, New Zealand is almost entirely an organic farm - and it ought to become much more of a dominant thing. The Tourism Board’s ‘100% Pure’ is stunning - it’s the most marvellous branding of New Zealand that’s existed. It would be wonderful if that became the whole brand of New Zealand."
He also rates heading Statistics New Zealand as his career highlight, "The UK job is different - it’s larger scale, more challenging and incredibly stimulating. Back home, however, I had a place, not only as the head of the organisation, but as a citizen who had a public role. I always think the top people in the civil service are also leaders of the community they come from. In New Zealand, I felt I occupied such a role."
Carson Scott
NZSA Editor's comments
For further accounts of the discussion in the Guardian follow these links.
In for the count
Len Cook is the number cruncher masterminding
the census. He tells Paul Kelso why it's so vital - and why he won't be classing
Jedi as a religion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,477900,00.html
Where is everybody?
According to the most recent census,
thousands of people have gone missing - a disappearing act that will cost
councils millions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,883653,00.html
Anger over census 'bungle'
Westminster council yesterday served notice that it
would seek an order from Gordon Brown directing the office of national
statistics to rerun the census in the borough, after it claimed the survey had
been bungled.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,870361,00.html
'Testy' boss quits numbers watchdog
The first head of the independent statistics watchdog, who has several times
confronted the government over the quality of official figures, is retiring in
April after three years. The Treasury is to advertise for a successor to Sir
John Kingman as chair of the statistics commission, a body proposed in Labour's
1997 manifesto to deal with alleged tampering with figures under the Tories.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,891499,00.html
'I'm looking for one million men'
When the results of the latest census were
announced this week, it emerged that a million young British men had
'disappeared'. The man in charge of the count thinks they're all at 'raves' in
places like Ibiza. We sent Emma Brockes to the island to find them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,804213,00.html
To read about it in his own words, see also Len Cook's Editorial
in JRSS A
Cook, L (2003) The National Statistician: 2 years on. J. R. Statist. Soc.
A, 165, 1, 1-4
(Hyperlink for subscribers)