We look at public sector digital transformation projects delivered during the pandemic such as the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) Test and Trace programme.

We’re all now feeling the effects of ‘Covid debt’: physical, mental – and, increasingly, financial.

Estonia is a small ex-Soviet country in Northern Europe that has a population of only 1.3 million, seven times less than London.

As we’ve mentioned in a previous article, 2021 saw smaller UK energy suppliers cease trading and exit the market at an unprecedented rate.

The consumer desire for a brighter Christmas amidst continuing Covid-19 restrictions has seen a sharp rise in ‘buy now pay later’ schemes, and with furlough ending and depression rates rising, a perfect storm lies ahead for all collections teams as consumers juggle multiple payment demands.

Telecoms organisations face a highly challenging business environment as digitisation continues to fuel the relentless disruption of established business models and practices, to enable increasing competition from new, more agile, entrants and forces constant regulatory changes as the market grapples with the societal shift to living and conducting business online.

At a recent roundtable in partnership with Wired, Doug Brown, Head of Data, Cyber and AI Guild and Chief Data Scientist of Capita Consulting, was joined by Lisa Talia Moretti, a digital sociologist at the Ministry of Justice; Reid Darby, innovation lead at Golden Valley Development in Cheltenham; Carly Kind, Director at the Ada Lovelace Institute and Tavi Kotka, an engineer/entrepreneur and former Chief Information Officer for the Estonian government to discuss data, identity and the digital citizen.

The second year of the pandemic has seen more people in the UK slide further into debt and organisations need to recalibrate their response through empathetic collections.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented enormous challenges across society and contributed to the widening of inequalities across many measures.

You don’t have to be involved in collections to be aware that the last 18 months have affected the financial circumstances of a huge number of people.