As the interim Chair of the LSB, it is my pleasure to report on our board meeting on 25 March, as well as other recent events. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate my fellow Board member, Flora Page KC, who has recently taken silk.
LSB business plan and budget for 2025/26
Our first substantive item was a review of the LSB’s business plan and budget for 2025/26, following the recent consultation.
I would like to thank everyone who responded. We received useful insight and important challenge. We listened carefully and have revised our proposals to reflect the feedback, as well as other changes since we went out to consultation. As a result, the Board was able to approve a revenue budget which was lower than that consulted upon, but which still sets an ambitious programme of targeted action for the year ahead.
The Board is keen to remain focussed on the areas where the LSB can make the biggest difference for consumers and the profession, and to continue listening and responding to the needs of consumers and the public.
We look forward to publishing the plan and budget shortly, alongside a summary of the feedback we received in the consultation and our response.
Regulatory performance assessment
Our second substantive item was to review and endorse the final version of this year’s regulatory performance assessment.
This report is a cornerstone of the LSB’s work, containing our assessments of how each regulator has performed against the three standards in our framework. By assessing the regulators’ performance, we aim to drive improvements to help them work effectively, efficiently and for the public good.
In this meeting, we had the opportunity to step back, consider the final report and discuss the broader trends and standout issues.
The report sets out the ways in which the two largest regulators – the SRA and the BSB – have fallen short of the standards expected of them. These are causes of concern for us and for the sector. These regulators need to work to deliver change to address the concerns, which is within their powers to do.
We will work more closely with them in light of these results. Elsewhere in the assessment, there are strong findings of assurance to be commended; we will also reflect on our approach, to make sure that we reduce burdens on regulators performing well, while targeting our resources on areas of poorer performance.
Office for Legal Complaints plan and budget 2025/26
Part of the Board’s statutory role is to approve the annual budget of the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), the Board of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO). Back in November we reviewed their draft proposals and approved the criteria that this year’s budget needed to meet. Now was the time to review their final proposed budget.
We recognised that recent years have seen a significant uplift in the demand for LeO’s services. This demand has drawn heavily on LeO’s resources, which has meant that it has not been able to make progress in reducing its backlog of cases – that is, complainants waiting for an investigation to start.
With that in mind, we approved the core part of the OLC’s proposal to increase its staffing level. We welcomed the fact that these additional investigators will not only work on complaints that LeO has already received, but a proportion will be working strategically to reduce demand in the longer term through insight and engagement work.
However, we were not satisfied with the value for money offered by a separate plan the OLC presented to publish summaries of ombudsman decisions. We therefore did not approve this portion of the proposal and instead asked the OLC to amend the core part of its staffing proposal in a way that would allow it to publish some decisions in the short term. Publishing decisions and case studies will enable the sector to learn and improve, and the public to see the outcome of complaints.
Reshaping Legal Services conference 2025
Back on 6 March, we had a full house for our annual conference, at which we were delighted by the engagement in the room and online. We certainly took away a range of ideas about where we can act, collectively, to make sure that legal services work better for those who need them. We hope others did too.
We’ve been updating the Reshaping Legal Services website with videos, reflections and speeches from the event. Take a look here.
Professional ethics consultation
At the conference, we launched a consultation on our proposals for how regulators can help legal professionals understand and observe their ethical duties.
Regulators are well positioned to help foster a culture of ethical decision-making, but it will require the input of others too. Legal service professionals require strong support systems that help them to navigate ethical challenges when they arise.
We invite you all to engage with these proposals. Together we can create a culture in which professional ethics are not just expected but positively enabled, and a profession that sustains the trust and confidence of the public.
You can find out more, and respond to the consultation, here.
Catherine Brown
Interim Chair of the LSB
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