Baroness McGregor-Smith is OfTI Chair

Theresa May has today (23rd July 2019) appointed Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith as Chair to the Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI). The Prime Minister has also published draft clauses that demonstrate how the independence of the Office for Tackling Injustices can be achieved in statute. Announced by the Prime Minister last week, the OfTI will look at disparities in areas including socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender, disability and LGBT and explore if people from these groups are unfairly discriminated against or held back from getting on in life.

Currently sitting on the Government’s Race Disparity Audit advisory group, McGregor-Smith – the first Asian female FTSE250 CEO when she was appointed in 2007 - conducted the Race in the Workplace review for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and has expertise in data, diversity and inclusion.

The Prime Minister has also appointed Dame Jil Matheson as OfTI’s Deputy Chair. A former National Statistician, Matheson has published extensively on surveys and survey methodology in the field of health and inequalities and is currently a member of the OECD High Level Expert Group on Measuring the Progress of Societies.

The Chair and Deputy Chair will have overall responsibility for effectively holding Government and wider society to account for progress in tackling social injustices, using extensive data, analysis and metrics to determine progress being made. They will also oversee OfTI’s annual report to Parliament on tackling social inequalities and work closely with Government to drive forward action in these areas.

Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith said:

"It’s an honour to be appointed the Chair of the Office for Tackling Injustices – a body which will not only drive Government and wider society to take action on social inequality, but which will offer very tangible means of doing so through unparalleled data. The time to take action against the injustices we see all around us in society is right now.

I’m confident this important work will help to bring lasting change in the UK and enable more of our society to go beyond the barriers which have previously held them back."

Dame Jil Matheson said:

"We cannot hope to change societal injustice if we do not understand where, and why, disparities exist.

The power of data can help us to do this, and I look forward to working alongside Ruby, the Government and other organisations to push for tangible change as we look closely at what the data tells us about the lived experiences of people in the UK."

About the OfTI

The Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI) will present future Governments with more effective, data-driven, evidence-based challenge to help drive forward reforms to tackle wide-ranging disparities in society.

Following the approach taken by the Race Disparity Audit which uses data to analyse how a person’s ethnicity affects their experiences of public services, the new body will use data and analysis to find out what the key barriers are for specific groups and gather data that is currently unreliable or simply not available.

The OfTI will look at disparities in areas including socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation and explore if specific groups of people are unfairly discriminated against or held back from getting on in life.

For example, the body will use data to drive Government to look at gender and disability inequalities in the workplace and in housing. Women, who generally enter the workplace with higher qualifications than men, are paid less at entry level and only 32% of disabled private renters said their accommodation was suitable.

Legislation will enable OfTI to provide strong independent challenge to future governments on progress towards tackling injustices. The illustrative clauses attached below provide for the organisation’s remit and functions, as well as the powers of and duties on the Government.

OfTI draft clauses (PDF, 98.3KB, 3 pages)