In 2001, WG-FSA identified the difficulties that arose when new quantitative methodologies are introduced and incorporated into assessments undertaken during the time of a single meeting. As a result, the WG-FSA Subgroup on Assessment Methods (WG-FSA-SAM) was established in order to provide an opportunity to provide time for a thorough evaluation of new assessment methods prior to their use at WG-FSA. In 2002 WG-FSA agreed that the subgroup should meet during the intersessional period and it has met each year since 2003, usually in association with the timing and location of the meeting of the Working Group on Ecosystem Monitoring and Management (WG-EMM).

In 2006 the Scientific Committee recognised the need for a specialist working group that could review technical assessment and modelling issues of interest to all working groups, and agreed that WG-FSA-SAM should become the Working Group on Statistics, Assessments and Modelling (WG-SAM). In 2011 the terms of reference for WG-SAM were expanded to allow consideration of a wider range of focus topics including: best practice from tagging programs and tag-based research, developing and evaluating methods to estimate illegal, unreported and unregulated ( IUU) removals and trends in levels of IUU effort and developing risk assessment methods for skate and macrourid by-catch in toothfish fisheries.

The current Co-conveners are Dr Clara Péron (France) and Dr Takehiro Okuda (Japan).

A list of the meetings (including reports) is available here.