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Photograph of Social Security Advisory Committee member, Dr Suzy Walton.

Dr Suzy Walton

Suzy Walton was appointed to the Social Security Advisory Committee in January 2024.

Suzy is a chartered director, occupational psychologist and scientist. As a former senior civil servant, she has worked in the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence. She was awarded a PhD for research into military suicide. Suzy is a Vice-President of Combat Stress, a charity for veterans’ mental health. She is also a disciplinary panel member of the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (Ministry of Justice) and a member of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (Department of Health).

Suzy has sat on multiple boards including the Institute of Directors, the global Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Suzy has been a non-executive director/lay member on many government committees including the State Honours Committee (Cabinet Office), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (BEIS), the Ethics Group of the National DNA Database (Home Office), the Science Advisory Council (Defra) and the National Specialist Commissioning Group (Department of Health).

She is also a former Vice President of the Royal Society of Medicine and former Deputy Chair of the Royal Society of Arts, the Internet Watch Foundation and the University of Westminster.

Suzy is a mother of seven and had earlier careers as a West End actress and a broadcast journalist with Sky News and LBC Radio.

The importance of listening: Dr Suzy Walton reflects on her new role with SSAC

“If at first you don’t succeed…” I first applied to join the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) just after my 6th child was born. I was previously a Senior Civil Servant in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and worked on …