We met in person on 22 March for our third Board meeting of 2022 and dealt with a number of items that marked the culmination of some important workstreams. We also signed off our business plan for 2022/23 and the Office for Legal Complaints budget application for 2022/23.
LSB Business plan 2022/23: maintaining progress against the sector’s challenges
Following public consultation and stakeholder engagement, the Board reviewed and agreed the LSB’s business plan for 2022/23. The plan focuses on fulfilling our statutory oversight role and continuing to address the challenges set out in the Reshaping Legal Services strategy for the sector. There are considerable challenges to be overcome to ensure legal services work better for people who need legal services, consumers, and society more broadly. Collaboration will continue to be central to our approach, and we encourage people to work with us, and together, to deliver fairer outcomes, stronger confidence, and better services for all those who need legal services.
Our business plan will be published at the end of March together with the consultation response document and our activity schedule.
Supporting consumer redress: OLC budget application 2022/23
To present the Office for Legal Complaints’ (OLC) 2022/23 Budget application, we were joined by Elisabeth Davies, Chair, Paul McFadden, Chief Ombudsman, and Sandra Strinati, Chief Operating Officer.
The Board expressed its regret that the minimum delivery expectations in last year’s budget application were not met despite a significant injection in funds. And, further, this investment was not fully spent due to recruitment and retention issues.
However, the Board decided to approve the budget after weighing a series of factors. OLC’s application was technically sound and satisfied the budget acceptance criteria. We also recognised some recent signs of stabilisation and recovery as well as a greater willingness by OLC to embrace radical change options.
We also welcomed OLC’s enhanced transparency and engagement with its stakeholders over the last year, which has improved understanding of the issues and begun to rebuild confidence in the scheme.
OLC also reassured us of its plans to manage attrition and continue investing in recruitment and retention.
The Board discussed the inflationary pressures that OLC, like all public bodies, will face over the coming year. The Board challenged the OLC to use its best endeavours to absorb those costs within the agreed budget. Early identification of potential challenges and contingency planning will be key to this.
The Board thanked the OLC for the team’s hard work and diligence in preparing their budget and business plan, and for responding to the Board’s scrutiny over the process of assessment over the previous months. The Board was pleased that the OLC had clearly listened and responded positively to its feedback from previous discussions.
Protecting and promoting the public interest: consumer empowerment statement of policy
The Board approved the statement of policy on empowering consumers. It was developed in response to the findings of the Competition and Markets Authority’s 2020 progress review of its 2016 legal services market study. Our work in this area contributes to the promotion of the regulatory objectives including promoting and protecting the interests of consumers, promoting competition in the provision of legal services, and increasing public knowledge of the citizen’s legal rights and duties.
Developed in consultation with the regulators and following public consultation, our statement of policy is designed to provide an effective, proportionate and targeted regulatory tool to further drive progress by the regulatory bodies on empowering consumers and increasing their engagement with the legal services market. Regulators will need to take the necessary steps to meet the expectations as outlined in the statement. We will publish the final statement next month.
Delivering an effective framework to evaluate regulatory performance
The regulatory performance framework is central to our ambition to encourage regulators to take ownership of the regulatory objectives and hold them to account for putting these at the centre of what they do. Following development and discussions over recent months, the Board considered the revision to the draft revised framework – which aims to be “demanding but permissive” – and agreed to consult in early April.
Advancing our strategy: reshaping legal services to better meet the needs of consumers
With regards to our key research projects in the pipeline, the Board noted the progress made with reference to the Public Panel research concerning people in vulnerable circumstances. We are finalising the Small Business Legal Needs Survey report and we anticipate that the results will be published in April. A ‘key asks’ document will be published alongside this research which will make the case for a legal support strategy for small businesses which the LSB have developed further to a round-table discussion with key stakeholders.
We will shortly be publishing the Public Panel research on consumer attitudes toward risk focusing on professional indemnity insurance, Public Panel research on the social acceptability of technology in legal services and an analysis of Financial Ombudsman case decisions on legal expenses insurance.
The Board believes that the Public Panel provides an excellent resource for regulators – it is valued by many of the key stakeholders working within the legal sector. An invitation-to-tender has been issued to recommission the Public Panel for a further two years.
Ensuring ongoing competence is maintained within the profession
We have received considerable feedback submissions to our recent consultation on the topic of ongoing competence and have also engaged with a number of stakeholders. We will consider all feedback when finalising the statement of policy.
Protecting consumers: reviewing the insurance landscape
We are concerned by factors including the potential hardening of the professional indemnity insurance market and increase in premiums which may have an impact on consumers due to increased costs for legal services. At our next Board meeting in April, we will be reviewing the work that has so far been completed. We are continuing to examine opportunities for collaborative working and we continue to collate data from professional indemnity insurers.
The War in Ukraine: promoting an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession
The Executive team updated the Board on the round-table meeting it had recently convened with all of the regulators, the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation, OPBAS and the MoJ to discuss the sanctions regime. The Board was pleased to hear that all parties recognised the important role that the regulated community has to play to help to ensure the effectiveness of the sanctions regime as it applies to legal services. A plan to raise awareness and ensure compliance and enforcement is being developed.
Reshaping legal services in Wales – online discussion event on 25 April 2022
Our first Board engagement event of 2022 is on Monday 25 April. The topic of the Wales online discussion event is ‘reshaping legal services – one year on’. We will discuss the progress made so far against our sector-wide strategy, identify issues to prioritise, and agree topics that are ripe for collaboration. The event is open to everyone with a role to play in ensuring legal services in Wales work better for those who need them. We hope to see you there. To sign-up to attend this event, please email press@legalservicesboard.org.uk.
We concluded the meeting by thanking Michael Smyth for his hard work and commitment over the last six years as a non-lay (solicitor) member of the LSB Board. His final term comes to an end on 17 April 2022.
Our next Board meeting will be on 26 April 2022.