Commission FAQs

The roundtables are by invitation only. We will be publishing summaries from each of the discussions. These will be made available on the PCPB website.

The roundtables are a mixture of online and in-person sessions. There will be four in total, followed by individual dedicated sessions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Members and registrants of the PCPB partners will be able to contribute to this important piece of work. This information will be used to inform the final report and recommendations, alongside the evidence given at the Commission sessions. You’ll be invited to submit evidence from January 2026, for a period of eight weeks. We’ll be providing full details on how to do this in due course.

Anyone with an interest in the Commission’s work will be able to contribute through the open call for evidence. We’ll publish more information about this closer to the launch of the call for evidence (January 2026) and would particularly welcome responses from people with lived experience and other members of the public, as well as from practitioners, services and organisations.

The commissioners will include nominated representatives from each of the PCPB partners, key providers and clinical experts, decision-makers, practitioners and people with lived experience. Additional subject matter experts will be invited based on the theme of each session.

The partners’ nominated representatives are:

Dr Heather Churchill, Association of Christians in Counselling and Linked Professions (ACC)

Dr Lynne Gabriel, President, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)

Lee Smith, Chair, British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)

Graeme Layzell, Director, Human Givens Institute (HGI)

Lindsay Cooper, National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS)

Pippa Donovan, Chair, United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)

The Commissioners were selected through discussions between the PCPB partner organisations, who reviewed a long list of potential candidates. Our aim is to bring together experts to cover each PCPB professional body, the broad sectors that our members and registrants are working in (health, education, academia, private practice, third sector etc.) as well as a spread across the UK to ensure a Commission which is representative of the diverse counselling and psychotherapy sector. The Commissioners also include experts from the wider mental health sector and people with lived experience of receiving counselling or psychotherapy.

We have aimed to bring together experts to represent each PCPB professional body, the main sectors that our members and registrants are working in (health, education, academia, private practice, third sector etc.) as well as a spread across the UK to ensure a commission which is representative of the diverse counselling and psychotherapy sector across the UK. The Commissioners also include experts from the wider mental health sector and people with lived experience of receiving counselling or psychotherapy.

The report will be available in the resources section of the PCPB website. The report and its recommendations will be shared with decision-makers and others who have an influence over the delivery and commissioning of counselling and psychotherapy across the UK. It’ll also be used to set the direction of PCPB’s shared policy work over the coming years.

Members and registrants of the PCPB partners live and work across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Commission will seek to reflect the different geographical contexts, commissioning arrangements and policies within its work and discussions. The Commission has appointed Commissioners from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In addition to the four themed sessions, the findings and recommendations of the report will be considered through a dedicated event in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure that the report fully reflects the differences within each nation.

We’d also encourage members and registrants of PCPB partners across each nation to take part in our call for evidence in early 2026, ensuring it reflects the experiences of all the PCPB partners members and registrants.

Anyone with an interest in the Commission’s work will be able to contribute through the open call for evidence. We’ll publish more information about this closer to its launch and would welcome responses from members and registrants, services, organisations and the public.

Yes, from our existing work in the nations, we expect many of the same themes to emerge, although we also want to capture the specific nuances from each nation. To achieve this, we have appointed Commissioners from each nation who will be involved throughout the whole process. In addition, we will hold single dedicated sessions in each nation after the four UK-wide roundtables to sense check our findings and ensure national differences are fully reflected in the final report and recommendations.

Each nation will have a single dedicated session. These will look at the full range of issues considered by the UK-wide roundtables and sense check our findings and explore the national differences which will need to be captured in the final report and recommendations.

We’re delighted that Phil has agreed to be Chair of the Commission. We felt it was important that the Commission had a Chair that is independent of the PCPB. As a former Member of Parliament and Minister of State in the Department of Health, Phil brings a wealth of experience of the policy and political contexts the Commission will focus on and the final report will aim to influence. He also brings professional expertise as a coordinator of the Health Devolution Commission which, since 2020, has been a key force in helping to influence the landscape of the devolution of the NHS and its services as well as the wider Health policy of successive governments.