This is a subject which may seem a little remote from the normal run of discussions at these meetings. But with the increasing tendency for actuaries to take up posts in Government service, in industry and in commerce, in which official statistics are an everyday need, I hope that some of you, at least, will find it interesting to have this brief account of the work of a Government statistics division.

The Statistics Division forms part of the Secretaries' Office of the Board of Inland Revenue. Its primary function is to supply the Board with the figures which the Chancellor of the Exchequer needs for Budget purposes, i.e. estimates of the future yield of taxation at current levels and of the cost or yield of possible changes in rates and allowances. The whole of the year's work centres on those requirements, but in the course of it many figures useful for other purposes emerge or can be collected with little additional effort.