The authors
Peter Madge worked in the debt team at Citizens Advice Specialist Support between 1990 and 2015. The team won the Institute of Money Advisers ‘Debt Team of the Year’ award in 2012. Between 1992 and 2006, he was editor of the Adviser magazine and was a regular contributor to the magazine until it ceased publication in print in 2019, and a member of the Adviser editorial board between 2016 and 2019. In 2010, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Money Advisers. Since leaving Citizens Advice, he has worked as a freelance debt advice consultant. He currently works for Recognising Excellence as technical expert to the Money and Pensions Service’s Debt Advice Peer Assessment Scheme.
Alexa Walker is a senior legal editor at Shelter, specialising in housing debt, possession proceedings and insolvency. She has extensive debt advice experience, including as a court duty adviser, consultant and IMA trainer.
John Kruse has worked as a debt adviser and trainer since the mid-1980s. He began to specialise in enforcement agent (bailiff) law in 1988 and has since written numerous articles and around two dozen books on different aspects of the subject, the most significant being Taking Control of Goods, published in 2014. He was involved in the various working parties that drafted the reformed bailiff law introduced in 2014. John set up the Bailiff Studies Centre in 2010 to promote best practice in enforcement law.
David Malcolm works in the public sector on education policy. He was formerly Head of Policy and Campaigns at the National Union of Students (NUS), where he worked on student finance policy for 17 years. He is the author of CPAG’s Student Support and Benefits Handbook.
Lynsey Dalton is a solicitor at Cambridge House Law Centre advising people whose benefits have stopped. Formerly, she was a trainee solicitor at CPAG.
Dawn Jennings is an information officer with the Money Advice Trust. She has worked for the Money Advice Trust since 2008 and has specialised in business debt advice for the majority of that time.
Mark Newbury has been working in the advice sector since 1985, initially as a general adviser. He transferred to money advice in 1990, working as a frontline caseworker for both Citizens Advice and a local authority. He is currently working freelance for both Wiser Adviser and Institute of Money Advisers.