Slaughter: Regulation of profession is too complicated
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) “would love to have a conversation” about whether the responsibility for handling complaints about solicitors should continue to be split between the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), its chief executive has told MPs.
Sarah Rapson said that not only was it “really difficult territory” for the public to work out whether to complain to the SRA or LeO, but the SRA needed to do “a far better job” in gathering intelligence from complaints.
Giving evidence to the justice select committee as part of its access to justice inquiry, Ms Rapson said the division between complaints about conduct, handled by the SRA, and complaints about service, dealt with by LeO, was “quite confusing” for consumers.
“But then if there’s a pattern of service complaints, that might be conduct and it’s back to us again, so, honestly, as someone fairly new to the sector trying to work out how on earth a member public would know who to go to, I think this is really difficult territory.
“We know that LeO has got backlogs and we’re also getting high volumes of reports about solicitors, so our work in progress is also increasing. It’s not a happy tale.”
Ms Rapson said technology was “part of the reason” for the increase in complaints to both LeO and the SRA. While it was good that people were being helped to complain by artificial intelligence, “vexatious” complaints could clog up the system.
She added: “We’re a bit worried that people think we’re an ombudsman. We’re behaving like a quasi-ombudsman in some senses.”
Liberal Democrat MP Vikki Slade, who said she was “mortified” by the complexity of regulation in the legal sector, asked if having both an ombudsman and a regulator was part of the problem, and whether the SRA could “do both sides”.
Ms Rapson replied: “I think this is a great question and I’m glad it’s come up today, because we feel quite strongly that we want to have that conversation in the sector. If you’re a member of the public, how do you know where to get redress?”
People might come to the SRA seeking redress, but all it could do was open an investigation, she explained.
Ms Rapson said the SRA “would love to have a bigger conversation” about complaints handling in the sector.
She added: “We think we’ve got to do a far better job in taking the intelligence from the individual reports about solicitors and joining it up so we can tackle firm and more systemic harm.
“That’s where we can genuinely add value – to spot the SSBs and PM Laws of this world as opposed to dealing with individual complaints.”
Anna Bradley, chair of the SRA, said the current regulatory framework for legal services “causes all sorts of issues and confusion about accountability” and “if you were to start with a black piece of paper, this is not what you would design”.
Andy Slaughter, chair of the justice committee, described regulation in the sector as “so complicated that no-one dares to try and unravel it”, and said there was “a lot of buck-passing”.
Pushed to say whether she thought there should be a single regulator, Ms Bradley, who is stepping down as chair of the SRA in December after eight years, said her “exiting view” was that it was time for a review of the Legal Services Act 2007 and the number of regulators should be reduced and their roles clarified.
But she added: “I don’t know if a single regulator is the answer. There are aspects of the current regulatory arrangements for different bits of different professions that are very different from what we do.”
Ms Rapson also revealed that a “rapid review” of whether the SRA should have picked up what was going on at PM Law before it suddenly closed in February – which is being conducted by an external law firm – should report in “a matter of weeks rather than months”.
MPs were also told that a forthcoming consultation on continuing competence would include a suggestion of mandating participation in annual discussion facilitated by a solicitor to draw out ethical issues.
In response to questions from Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt about Mazur, Ms Rapson said the SRA “can do more to help people understand what an effective supervision regime needs to be, but we can’t proscribe in every situation that ‘this is how it’s meant to be’”.
Its updated guidance would include case studies to help the profession, she said.
Ms Bradley said the SRA wanted to talk to the Law Society more generally about the guidance it issues where it was not aligned with the SRA’s.
Legal Services Board (LSB) chief executive Richard Orpin separately gave evidence to the committee, and he conceded that “more should have been done” to ensure advice about the conduct of litigation was “better co-ordinated and consistent”.
While he could not say why that was not done in the past, he revealed that, following the Court of Appeal ruling in Mazur, he wrote to all the legal regulators and representative bodies to ask them to review all areas of activity “to ensure there isn’t the scope for misalignment”, as happened with the conduct of litigation.
Conservative MP Sir Ashely Fox questioned what the LSB did that the Ministry of Justice could not were it to supervise the frontline regulators itself.
“We’re able to scrutinise, act when things go wrong, and to make statement of policy to bring about change in the sector for the benefit of consumers,” Mr Orpin said.
Sir Ashley suggested “that’s nothing the ministry couldn’t do”. Mr Orpin acknowledged there was a debate about reforming regulation, but for now, “we work within the framework we’re required to work within as set by Parliament”.
Mr Orpin said it was “incumbent on us all to exhaust the levers that are available in the Act” to improve regulation without the need for new legislation.
With the Ministry of Justice currently undertaking a review of the LSB, he added: “I’m really proud of the work the LSB does, the people we have and the steps we have taken in the last one to two years using the powers available to us in the Act as it stands to take enforcement action, to set a direction and to drive change through the regulators that we oversee and we’ll continue to go forward on that basis.”
Separately, the Ministry of Justice yesterday formally confirmed the appointment of Monisha Shah as chair of the LSB for four years, in the wake of the committee’s backing for it after a scrutiny hearing last month [1].