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The vast majority of MPs are concerned that their constituents may not understand what legal services are regulated and which are not, new research has found. It also identified concern that there is insufficient redress for consumers of legal services.

Probate and estate administration services should become reserved legal activities, the Legal Services Consumer Panel has recommended. It follows the panel’s call last year for will-writing to be regulated as well, which sparked a formal LSB investigation into the issue.

Moves are afoot to examine whether will-writing, probate and estate administration should be re-classified as a reserved activity and brought within the sole preserve of the legal profession. The review is conducted amidst a background of concerns about the quality of advice being received by consumers, particularly by those outside of the ‘legal’ framework.

It is not necessary to use a legally qualified professional to prepare a will, the British Bankers Association has insisted. It said a bank’s in-house unit “produces just as satisfactory a service as a firm of solicitors regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority”.

The Legal Ombudsman should have jurisdiction over non-lawyer employment advisers as part of work to improve consumer protection in the field, employment judges have suggested. Their primary concern was the lack of consistency in the redress available to claimants.