Panel members

Helen Froud (Chair)

Helen is a former Deputy Chief Executive of the Western Isles Council and was previously Director of Corporate Services at Worcestershire County Council. She also worked in consulting for KPMG. She was Managing Director of her own consultancy firm until 2013, when she retrained to be a Salvation Army Officer. Since then she has run Salvation Army centers in Aberdeen and Inverness; and is now Assistant Director (Research) for The Salvation Army UK and Ireland.

Helen was previously a Non-Executive Director on the former Health Protection Agency Board, and on the Board of the National Records of Scotland. She is also former Trustee of One Parent Families Scotland. She sat on the SSE Networks Stakeholder Advisory Panel until 2022.

Helen joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 May 2021.

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Kay Allen OBE

Kay is Campaign Director for Age Irrelevance and has worked for B&Q, BSkyB and Royal Mail. She has been a Commissioner on the Disability Rights Commission and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She also served as a NED on the Department for Work and Pensions PDCS Board. 

In 2010 she was asked by Downing St to look at Responsible Business Practice of small business as part of the Big Society Team. As a result she created the on line digital platform ‘Trading for Good’ which is now owned by Business in the Community.

She has run her own successful bespoke consultancy for 10 years specialising in Responsible Business and Diversity and Inclusion. A qualified performance coach Kay helps others to succeed. Kay is a Fellow of St Georges House Windsor, A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an OBE for services to Equality.

Kay joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 December 2018.

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Rachel Burr (Member for Wales)

Rachel Burr has worked in the third sector for 18 years, championing consumer experience and driving improvements to services. She spent eight years at Citizens Advice, where she led a network of consumer empowerment hubs around the UK to bring public, private and charitable organisations together with consumers to help seek redress and drive improvements in regional and local consumer policies and practices.

She is Director of Diabetes UK Cymru, where as strategic and operational lead for the charity in Wales, she works with her team to support people living with the condition, and improve policies and services around prevention, diagnosis and care. She was formerly Director for Wales at the Community Transport Association, supporting lifeline transport services for people cut off from other means of transport, often as a result of vulnerability, disability or rurality. Rachel is passionate about making services work for the people who need them, and bringing lived experience expertise into policymaking.

Rachel joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 January 2024.

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Professor Judith Clifton

Judith Clifton is an internationally recognised expert on the economics of communications policy reform and the challenge of new technologies. In particular, she brings to the Panel a deep knowledge of the impact of communications reform and technological change upon potentially vulnerable, including, older consumers. She completed her DPhil on telecommunications reform at the University of Oxford (1999) and, since then, has published dozens of books and papers on this topic, particularly, from the perspective of the vulnerable consumer. She is currently Full Professor of Economics at the University of Cantabria. She also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Economic Policy Reform, and Associate Editor on the Board of Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy & Society, amongst other leading scientific journals. 

Judith joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 August 2023.

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Lenna Cumberbatch

Lenna’s work focuses on diversity and inclusion strategic change. Over 25 years she has held operational roles at organisations such as the University of Cambridge, the Royal Society, and sexual health charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust.  Her advisory and trustee roles have included the Wellcome Trust, the British Pharmacological Society and as committee chair for communications company Project Everyone raising awareness for the UNs Global Goals.   

She is committed to community and volunteers for organisations such as the Windsor Fellowship, as a Patron of Switchboard the LGBT+ helpline, and as a facilitator for anti-bullying charity, Diversity Role Models.  

Her non-executive director roles include recruitment firm Goodman Masson, Housing Association Rooftop Group, and the Grace Eyre Foundation supporting people with learning disabilities.  For the European Commission Lenna audits, reviews and monitors multi-million Euro grant applications and projects as one of their team of experts.  

A member of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Lenna is a Toastmaster’s Competent Communicator and Competent Leader.  Her speaking engagements have included a keynote at the Portuguese Annual Science Communication Congress, BBC Scotland’s Black History month programme, and Women of the World (WOW) festival.  

Lenna joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 August 2023.

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Dr Michelle Goddard

Dr Michelle Goddard is currently Data Protection Officer at the Financial Ombudsman Service focusing on privacy, data and ethics.  She is also an independent member of the Advertising Advisory Committee of the Advertising Standards Authority. Michelle previously served as a member of the Legal Services Consumer Panel for 6 years and has significant experience in privacy and consumer market regulation gained in a range of academic, policy and enforcement roles. A non-practising barrister, Michelle has also held senior executive, consultancy and consumer- focused policy advisory positions including roles at Which?,  the Competition Commission and the statutory consumer bodies, Consumer Focus and Citizens Advice.

Michelle joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 August 2023.

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Robert Hammond

Robert has over 20 years’ experience representing consumer interests at national and international policy levels and commissioning consumer-related research that has been used to influence decision-makers and protect consumers’ rights. Much of his work has been across the regulated sectors of energy, postal services, telecoms, water and, more recently, in the field of sustainability. As a former policy director at Energywatch, Consumer Focus and Citizens Advice, the work of Robert and his team had a particular statutory remit to represent the interests of vulnerable and elderly consumers, as well as those disadvantaged by geographic location. 

Since retiring from Citizens Advice, Robert has been involved in freelance consultation projects on consumer and sustainability issues. He has also developed an interest in class representation redress whereby millions of consumers who would otherwise not be aware or have the opportunity to pursue their legal rights, can be awarded compensation in the event of a breach of competition law.

Robert joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 August 2023.

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Richard Spencer (Member for England)

Richard has 30 years’ experience in consumer and SME mobile and fixed telecoms markets in the UK and abroad, most of which was spent at BT. His career has encompassed pricing, strategy, policy, business ethics and regulation. His final role was as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, playing a key role in architecting and monitoring the company’s programmes designed to have a positive impact on society and the environment.

Richard is the Senior Independent Director of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust and was trustee for a charity in Colchester which provides support to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. He also serves on the Leadership Board of Reference of a local church in Colchester.

Richard joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 December 2018.

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Dr Michael Wardlow

Before being appointed as Chair of NI Transport Holding Company in 2020, Michael was the Chief Commissioner for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, a public appointment he held from March 2012 to February 2020. Before joining the Commission he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education a post he held from 1995. 

Michael is currently Chair of the NI Police Fund and Chair of Translink NI. Prior to this, following 7 years in commerce, the majority of his work experience, both paid and in a voluntary capacity, was in the area of peace building and reconciliation, interests which have presented opportunities for him to work in over 40 countries.

In addition to being a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, Michael is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute.  Michael is also a Visiting Scholar in George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.

Michael joined the Communications Consumer Panel and Advisory Committee for Older and Disabled People on 1 April 2021.

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