Alison Garnham became chief executive of CPAG in September 2010. Prior to that she was the CEO of Daycare Trust - since June 2006. Prior to this, for nine years, she was the director of policy, research and information at One Parent Families (now Gingerbread).

Alison worked for many years as a welfare rights adviser and for a number of women’s organisations and local voluntary sector organisations before, in 1989, joining CPAG (for the first time) where she co-authored a number of publications about the Child Support Act. She has subsequently written about lone parenthood and child poverty, including an edition of Poverty: the Facts, published by CPAG.

Before joining One Parent Families she was senior lecturer in social policy at the University of North London (now London Metropolitan University) where she has also been an honorary research fellow.

Alison was for nine years a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee and an honorary officer of the End Child Poverty campaign.

Alison was made a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2018