Last week was another busy week at the Legal Services Board, as we travelled to Cardiff to meet stakeholders from across the profession in Wales.
On Tuesday, we held our Board Strategy session, reflecting on sector-wide progress in delivering fairer outcomes, stronger confidence and better services to reshape legal services to meet society’s needs and considering our priorities for the next business planning year. On Wednesday, following valuable discussions with a wide range of stakeholders based in Wales, we hosted a reception at the Senedd. The Board was very grateful to hear more about the work being done by different parts of the sector in Wales to improve access to justice.
Strategy session – reflecting on progress and sharpening the focus on the public interest
We began the session by reflecting on the progress made so far in addressing the challenges identified in our strategy published in 2021. This set the scene for discussions on what more needs to be done to improve outcomes for legal services users and the public.
As is best practice for strategy discussions, we considered a range of external developments, including the economic and political outlook, as well as technological, environmental, social and regulatory developments. This was supported by the latest indicators from our data analysis and research. Board members agreed that having delivered on a wide range of policy initiatives over the last three years, it is now crucial that the regulators continue to make progress in implementing them, including evaluating how successful they have been in meeting their objectives. We also discussed the importance of remaining alert to new developments, including the impact AI may have on the legal services sector, to ensure regulation keeps pace with technology and innovation.
Amplifying the impact of regulation using our regulatory levers
We considered our proposed areas of focus for 2024/25, including increasing our capacity and capability on oversight and performance to support the implementation of our revised regulatory performance assessment framework. This included discussing a proposal to secure additional resources so that we can act proactively or in response to concerns to ensure regulators are meeting our expectations and improving their performance, for example, through thematic or targeted reviews.
In terms of policy, we identified two existing workstreams as key priorities. Our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) work aims to maximise the impact of regulation in creating a more diverse legal sector, including considering the full range of regulatory levers we have available. Our Professional Ethics and the Rule of Law work considers how legal professionals uphold the rule of law through their professional ethical conduct and includes projects on misuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and implementation of the proposed new Economic Crime Objective. The next phase of work for the 2024/25 business cycle will be to ensure that we deliver tangible progress through regulatory policy informed by our wide-ranging evidence base and stakeholder engagement.
We also looked at our other key policy activities for 2024-25, such as continuing to develop and embed a comprehensive market surveillance approach to better enable us to proactively detect risks and emerging threats before they become significant issues, scoping and advancing work on understanding the role of regulation in improving access to justice and progressing our review of regulators’ enforcement and disciplinary processes.
Board members expressed support for our proposals and, given the scale of our agenda, acknowledged that there was likely to be less capacity for potential new workstreams in 2024-25. We will, of course, remain alert to the need to respond and reprioritise our work programme if new opportunities and risks emerge.
Budget for 2024/25
The need to deliver value for money whilst achieving impact through our work is always at the forefront of our minds. We had an initial discussion on the 2024/25 budget ahead of a fuller discussion, which we will have in November. Budgetary factors will need to be considered carefully – considering the economic landscape whilst ensuring that improvements are made where required to deliver high-quality legal services for all consumers.
We will be consulting on our draft business plan and proposed budget for 2024/25 in December 2023. Our Board will agree the final business plan and budget in March next year.
Delivering our ambition for people and small businesses in Wales
On Wednesday, Board Members and colleagues were privileged to meet with representatives from the Law Council for Wales, Cardiff School of Law, Speakeasy Law Centre, and Cardiff School of Management. We came away with lots of learning and insights that will shape our work.
We also hosted a stakeholder reception at the Senedd, sponsored by Peredur Owen Griffiths MS. We were joined by academics, solicitors and barristers, government officials, legal advice agencies, and some of the approved regulators and regulatory bodies.
Our Chair, Alan Kershaw, opened the event by speaking about our wide-ranging programme of work focused on ensuring people in Wales who need legal services can access them. He made it clear that as the oversight regulator for both England and Wales, it is important to us that we invest in understanding perspectives across the two nations and, indeed, their regions.
We heard from Warren Palmer, Director of the Speakeasy Law Centre in Cardiff. He discussed the importance of law centres and social welfare lawyers in Wales.
Peredur Owen Griffiths MS shared his interest in our strategy focused on delivering fairer outcomes for people who need legal services. Finally, Mick Antoniw MS, Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, spoke about his ambition for legal services in Wales.
One of the issues that came through clearly in discussions was the need for greater data and evidence on legal services in Wales, to better understand the needs of Welsh legal services users. There was also a commitment to strengthen engagement and we are looking forward to holding our inaugural forum for legal services regulators in Wales planned for next month. Overall, it was a valuable and thought-provoking session and the Board was very grateful to all those who helped make it a success.
Our next Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 17 October 2023.