The Low Commission was established by LAG in 2013 with the aim to prepare a report and recommendations on Social Welfare Law in the aftermath of the LASPO Act and the cuts to advice services.  At the time I worked for Citizens Advice and led the engagement with Commission on their behalf.  I gave oral and written evidence to the Commission and was extremely impressed at all the trouble and care that they took to look at all sides of the arguments, to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, visit different services in different localities, hold discussion events, and to prepare background and consultation papers. This process cemented the Commission’s emerging reputation as a body that working from the evidence could provide some answers and guidance on the way forwards, not just for the beleaguered civil legal aid system, but also for whole advice sector, for public bodies, and those key areas of social welfare law – benefits, debt, housing, immigration, community care.   My own role really started after the Commission had completed its initial inquiry in 2013 and put out its findings – publishing a report at the start of 2014 that was well received following a launch event with Lord McNally, Lord Woolf and others. The Commission though did not want to rest on its laurels and I was recruited as research and campaigns manager to take this forward into a new phase of political engagement and follow up work. The core agenda was outlined in our Tackling the Advice Deficit Report but needed targeting at different audiences, sectors and political groupings. With a fluid situation for agencies on the ground the evidence base also needed updating, refreshing and most importantly our case for Government investing in an advice strategy needed to be underpinned by a compelling cost benefit analysis – so we quickly followed up the first report with an economic evidence review by Graham Cookson on the cost-saving value of early advice.   And then from the evidence onto the politics, promoting our work with MPs, Ministers, Mandarins and Party Conferences – again received with lots of warm words, but we still needed stronger evidence that advice matters in all spheres. So the next issue we addressed was on the role of advice in getting decisions right first time and systems running smoothly, and this became the focus of our second report (Getting it Right in Social Welfare Law) which we published before the General Election got underway in order have maximum impact at that stage of the political cycle. The general election result confirmed our working assumption that there would be no let up in overall public funding consolidation and that new approaches had to found to maximise public resources and deliver more efficiently – but parts of the public sector sharing resources also.   So onto the Commission’s next theme of advice and health, and how could our health and care system work with advice providers to help integrate services, address non-medical needs in the NHS and maximise a ‘social prescribing’ approach to healthcare, improving mental and physical wellbeing and tackling health inequalities. Michael Marmot’s support for this way of thinking and support for our argument helped us to engage with a wide range of health professionals and bodies following the publication of our joint report with the Advice Service Alliance on the Role of Advice Services in Health Outcomes. This culminated in being able to hold a one day event at Public Health England with health commissions and experts supported by the likes of Norman Lamb MP, the Kings Fund and other health system leaders.   Finally from theory to practice, our idea of an overarching “advice strategy” at national and local levels is not a hypothetical notion, we have worked with the Welsh Government to deliver this approach, with local government, and in partnership with the Advice Services Alliance to spread the local strategy approach underpinned by advice partnerships. In Westminster and Whitehall there’s certainly, on the basis of our engagement, recognition of the need for this approach although   In winding up the Commission, I’ve noted some commentaries have suggested that exhausting our own funding cycle is somehow symptomatic of the wider funding crisis facing the free legal and advice sectors and associated organisations – that’s not a correct reading. Whilst we would have liked to have kept going and there is more research that needs to be done, the reality is that we had our funding and mandate extended twice from 1 to 3 years and winding up before or around this time was always inevitable. Unless Government were to support us to become a standing Commission or advisory body (a great idea and much needed I’d say!), all Commissions like this are time-limited and come to an end. We have fulfilled our mandate and it’s interesting to see other advocates take up our ideas - in fact I’d suggest from the positive receptions and responses that we have had to our work, that if anything we have over-delivered on what we set out to do and punched well above our weight. If nothing else we have set an agenda that will span well into the future.   James Sandbach   Pic: Lord McNally at the launch of the Low Commission Report