Walter Merricks knows from experience what the new OLC will need to get off the ground - and believes the FOS well-suited to ensure its success


Many solicitors will have quietly agreed with outgoing Law Society President Kevin Martin when he said that the advent of an independent body to handle complaints would allow the Law Society to breathe a sigh of relief. Ever since the Glanville Davies affair in the mid-1980s spurred the creation of the Solicitors Complaints Bureau, later re-badged the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors and now the Consumer Complaints Service, complaints-handling has dogged the Law Society's relations with government, consumers and, indeed, many solicitors. Managing it has appeared a thankless task. And seeing their professional body fined in relation to complaints-handling is an embarrassment that solicitors will have felt keenly.



But the creation of an independent complaints body - as proposed by the draft Legal Services Bill - will not be the end of the affair. It is vital for the profession's reputation that the proposed office for legal complaints (OLC) is able to capture public confidence, and a key test for the profession will be whether the new body can run in an efficient manner that keeps costs down.



Six years ago, my colleagues and I had the task of merging six different financial complaints bodies, relocating them, selecting and retraining staff, and preparing to operate under a new legislative framework. So I know just what a challenge lies ahead. Since then, we have managed an increasing caseload with high consumer satisfaction and, capturing the benefits of modern infrastructure, we have reduced the unit cost of resolving complaints from £750 to £433. By comparison, last year the Law Society's complaints service used £29 million to resolve 18,840 complaints - a cost per complaint of more than £1,500.



It is proposed that the OLC will be almost exactly modelled on the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), and much of the draft Bill is a cut-and-paste version of our legislation. So it seemed natural to consider whether the benefits of the infrastructure we have created - IT, quality systems, communications, finance and training - could not be shared with a sister body carrying out similar functions. The OLC will otherwise have to create these facilities anew.



The government and consumer bodies have demanded that the new OLC be not simply a re-badged version of what has gone before. But there are real risks in an untried and untested operation, and the experience we have had seemed to parallel so closely what will face the new body that we thought it worthwhile to offer to assist by managing the new organisation. If asked to do so, we would build on the best of what has gone before. Clearly, complaints about legal services need to be investigated by those who have experience about legal procedures. We would deploy specialist expertise on legal complaints, just as we do in the different areas of financial complaints we currently handle.



We work closely with our financial community while retaining our independence. The body representing small financial advisory firms that share a similar client base to high street solicitors has reacted positively: 'The many good people at the FOS work hard for the benefit of the financial services community and our clients. We strongly support the ombudsman system and would support a joint ombudsman service with the OLC.'



Consumer bodies have also welcomed our offer. Is there a chance that lawyers, at long last, might have a complaints-handling body that consumer bodies commend, whose costs are reduced and fairly allocated, and of which the profession can be proud?



Walter Merricks is the chief ombudsman at the Financial Ombudsman Service