Navigating the Cost-of-Living Crisis: Cross-sector Approaches to Support Citizens and Consumers
Author WIG Date 22 Mar 2023
Join us for this panel discussion in partnership with the UK Regulators Network. With speakers including Donna Ward, Director of Poverty, Families and Disadvantage, Department for Work and Pensions, Catherine Rutter, Director Group Customer Inclusion, Lloyds Banking Group, Alex MacDermott, Technical specialist, FCA, and Chair of the UK Regulators Network Cost of Living Working Group, and Frank Soodeen, Director of Communications and Public Engagement at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
As we look ahead to the start of a new financial year, the pressure on household budgets across the UK looks set to continue growing. WIG is convening this expert panel with our colleagues at the UKRN to discuss how organisations across the sectors are supporting citizens and consumers to face these challenges, and to identify collaborative opportunities to build on this work while growing the wider economy.
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To access this resource you must be a WIG member and logged in to our website.
You can register or log-in here.
Speakers at the Event
Frank leads JRF’s public engagement, advocacy, and campaigning work.
Frank is also responsible for providing all parts of the JRF-JRHT group with high quality communications support through its media, marketing, digital, strategic communications, public affairs, and events teams.
Prior to his appointment Frank held a series of campaigning, policy and influencing roles at JRF, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, The Nuffield Trust, The Royal College of Physicians, and Alcohol Concern. He holds degrees in philosophy and public policy and management.
Donna Ward joined the Department for Work and Pensions as a Policy Director in August 2017. She is currently Director of Poverty, Families and Disadvantage and has responsibility for poverty policy and analysis, disadvantaged groups and family policy.
Donna trained as an economist and has moved between a number of analytical and policy roles across Government during her career. Her first SCS appointment was in the Treasury, as Head of Public Sector Pay and Pensions in 2004. Her most recent role, before joining DWP was that of Chief Analyst in the Department for Education.
I’ve worked in the credit and debt space for the past 20 years. I started out as a debt adviser in Greenwich in early 2000’s before joining Citizens Advice as a policy officer in 2008. During my time at Citizens Advice I chaired a number of influential working parties looking in debt advice delivery and how best to help consumers manage and overcome periods of financial difficulty. After that I worked in industry before joining the FCA in 2014. I started working with UKRN on a cross-sector response to the cost-of-living increases in mid-2022 and I am now really proud to be the Chair of the group taking that work forward.
With a career spanning 35 years at Lloyds Banking Group, Catherine has held a variety of senior roles from delivering complex programmes to leading a team of 7,000 UK-wide customer service team colleagues.
In her current role, Catherine is responsible for driving improved experiences and fair outcomes for customers in vulnerable circumstances and sets the Group strategy on customer inclusion. Gaining insight from partners, she works to further the Group’s understanding of vulnerability whilst developing plans, priorities and guidance to better support customers in a way that meets their individual needs.
Catherine is passionate about regional equality and this reflects in her additional role as the Group’s Ambassador for Yorkshire and The Humber where she encourages cross sector working and uses the Group’s insight and resources to help address the major economic and social challenges the region faces. She is a Rainbow LGBTQ+ ally and is the Group’s executive sponsor for neurodiversity.