A landmark study linking law centre and council data has produced hard evidence on the impact of legal support – and shown the way to measure successfully the value of legal aid and early legal advice.

The study, conducted by Policy in Practice for the Legal Education Foundation, linked Coventry City Council’s benefits data to Central England Law Centre’s casework data, which enabled households to be tracked for two years.

The evidence showed households helped by the centre gain £153 per month in ‘equivalised’ income. Seven in 10 households that received legal assistance felt more positive afterwards.

The four-year study cost a fraction of the £5m spent by the Ministry of Justice on its failed six-month early legal advice pilot for social welfare law. 

Elayne Hill, chief executive of Central England Law Centre, said the report ‘moves the conversation beyond anecdotes’ and shows that specialist legal advice ‘is an essential part of any serious response to poverty, inequality and insecurity’. The report points to a wider opportunity to use data to identify people missing out on legal advice ‘and connect them with specialist help before problems escalate’.

 Read more about the initiative in this week's magazine here