Done was educated at the University of Manchester, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree (BA) in economics in 1971; she then began training as an accountant at KPMG. In 1976, she was appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In 1988, she returned to KPMG as a senior manager in their public sector department, but in 1991 became Treasurer of the Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, serving until 1998 when she became Chief Executive. In 2000, she became Chief Executive of Manchester 2002, which was responsible for organising that city's Commonwealth Games. When that role expired in 2003, she became Managing Director for Local Government, Housing and Criminal Justice at the Audit Commission (2003–06), which made her ultimately responsible for the commission's inspections of local government organisations. She then spent a year as Interim Director-General of the Royal British Legion for the year 2006–07. She was then Chairman of the Youth Justice Board from 2008 to 2014, and has served as a Trustee of the Canal and River Trust (formerly the Waterways Trust) since 2003. In 2015, the Department for Communities and Local Government appointed her vice-chairman of the Birmingham Improvement Panel.