Career
Her first job was working for Manchester City Council as a trainee child care officer in 1961. She was paid £660 a year. She worked in the voluntary sector, as chief executive of Carers National Association (now renamed Carers United Kingdom) for which she was awarded an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 1993 Birthday Honours.
Mrs Pitkeathley was created a life peer as Baroness Pitkeathley, of Caversham in the Royal County of Berkshire on 6 October 1997.
Since 1998 she has been chair of one of the lottery distributors, the New Opportunities Fund. In 2004, she was appointed chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS).
Lady Pitkeathley also chaired the Office for Civil Society Advisory Body until its abolition in March 2011.