Setting the Scene Intro – Catherine Rutter, Director of Group Customer Inclusion, Lloyds Banking Group
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.
Mark Fearn, Program Lead – Walsall Council
Mark has worked within the Revenues arena for almost forty years and are currently the Customer Experience Lead (Revenues, Income Recovery & Debt) at Walsall MBC. His previous posts have included Revenues Manager at Milton Keynes Council, Head of Revenues at North West Leicestershire DC and Revenue Collection Manager at South Derbyshire District Council.
Mark is a Council Member of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation (IRRV) and is currently Chair of the institutes Local Taxation and Revenue Faculty Board. He has been instrumental in Walsall being extremely successfully at the IRRV annual Performance Awards in recent years. They won Revenue Team of the Year in 2021 as well as two Excellence Awards in the 2021 & 2022 awards. The work around debt segmentation and dealing with vulnerability have been instrumental in these successes.
He is a regular speaker at the IRRV national events had articles published in the Institutes journal and carried out training across the country.
Steven Donovan, TCF and Customer Vulnerability Lead – Ovo Energy
Steve is the TCF & Consumer Vulnerability Lead at OVO. He is a specialist in customer experience and strategy, with a particular focus on supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances. He leads on delivery for the vulnerability & affordability strategy at OVO covering work across their Priority Services Register (PSR), Customer Support Package and adherence to the Energy UK Vulnerability Commitment.
Stuart Daniels, Chief Credit Officer – Freemans Grattan Holdings
He has significant experience in online retail, financial services, finance and technology. Previously he was Chief Operating Officer at TruNarrative, a software business specialising in prevention of Financial Crime. Stuart spent 15 years at NBrown (JD Williams) in senior roles in Financial Services and Finance.
Maria Moriarty, Head of Resident Engagement and Corporate Experience – Network Homes
Maria Moriarty is Head of Resident Engagement and Corporate Experience at SNG (formerly Network Homes) Housing Association. She is the lead for the Resident Engagement service and the Facilities Service as well as chairing the project team who manage their charitable fund. With over 17 years’ experience in the housing sector she is passionate about giving residents a voice and enabling them to influence the services provided to them. One of her proudest achievements is launching the organisation’s charitable fund in April 2020 enabling them to provide the additional support needed by the residents they serve.
Dianne Challis, Welfare Advice Team Leader – Sovereign Network Group
Dianne Challis is Team Leader of SNGs Welfare Benefit team, we are a team of five and cover all the former Network Homes properties which are spread over 27 London Boroughs plus our Hertfordshire properties. Since 2017 we have assisted in excess of 6000 residents, obtaining £11.4m in unclaimed benefits for our residents. She has been in the advice sector for 38+ years. Starting in the independent advice sector as a volunteer trainee advisor in April 1985 in what was then one of the most deprived wards/boroughs, where she moved on to manage the community-based centre, doing everything from fundraising (including two Big Lottery Grants) to buying to loo roll. Over a period of time she found she was spending more time on admin than working with people and took the decision to jump ship after 20+ years to the CAB where she specialised in Welfare Rights and Debt (certificated Member of the Institute of Money Advisors) and eventually Age UK as her first love will always be meeting and working with people often in crisis and making a difference.
Charlotte Crane, Operations Manager Income – Southwark Council
Charlotte Crane (Acutt) has nearly 30 years’ experience of working in Local Government Revenues across two London Boroughs. In her current role as Income Operations Manager at Southwark Council she in responsible for the collection of various income streams. She manages an in-house enforcement agent function and has implemented a managed single view of debt across all areas in her current remit. Charlotte was a member of the IRRV National Council, the immediate past President of the London and Home Counties IRRV Association and a previous member of the London Revenues Group executive committee.
Muna Yassin MBE, CEO – Rooted Finance
Muna has over 20 years’ experience in financial inclusion services. She is the CEO of Rooted Finance (RF), a London-based specialist debt advice Charity. Rooted Finance provides bespoke on-to-one support for London’s Diverse Ethnic Communities helping them manage financial distress, multiple debts, and work towards financial wellbeing and resilience.
In March 2021 she was appointed to the VCSE Advisory Panel convened by VCSE Crown Representative, Claire Dove. The VCSE Advisory Panel has been set up to advise the government on how to help more organisations from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sectors compete effectively in public sector contracts. In June 2021, Muna was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and was awarded an MBE for charitable Financial Services to Disadvantaged People during Covid-19. She has a particular interest in reducing financial inequalities and increasing economic empowerment of disadvantaged communities – with a focus on minoritised communities and women. In March 2022, Muna joined the board of Toynbee Hall. Previously she was on the board of Women Advancing Microfinance UK (WAMUK).
Darren Smith, Financial Resilience Transformation Lead – Barnet Council
Darren is responsible for Council Tax, Business Rates, Benefits, Housing Benefit Overpayments and Welfare services. Working in Revenues and Benefits for 24 years, Darren started in Benefits in 1999 through Dudley Metropolitan Borough Councils then Youth Training Scheme, before working for multiple Local Authorities nationally, specialising in system conversion project management roles for several years, followed by various management roles, before becoming the Revenues and Benefits manager at London Borough of Barnet in 2019.
Darren is the secretary of the London Revenues Collection Group and London Revenues Enforcement Group.
