Audrey Brown was formerly Deputy Director at the Department for Education with overall responsibility for providing analysis and research for the development of policy for schools. She managed a team of statisticians, operational researchers, social researchers and economists and worked closely with policy advisers to promote evidence-based policy development.
Audrey also served a four-year term as a council member of the Royal Statistical Society and later as chair of the Economic and Social Data Service. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2007.
During her career, Audrey has also been responsible for publishing statistics on further and higher education, and education finance, and she worked for a time at the former Further Education Funding Council. Before moving into education Audrey worked with social statistics, managing the ONS Longitudinal Study and working on household composition, fertility and the Census. She also had a spell at Eurostat.