A change in mindset has allowed the Legal Complaints Service to surpass its complaints-handling targets, reports Shamit Saggar


The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) has exceeded its timeliness targets for the year April 2006 to March 2007.



The organisation, which handles complaints against solicitors practising in England and Wales, closed 59% of files within three months (target 57%), and 94% of files within 12 months (target 94%).



This impressive performance comes at a time when many people are yet to recognise the degree to which the LCS has changed in a little over a year.



The board of the LCS has officially been in place since January 2006, and Deborah Evans was appointed as the new chief executive last July. We all approached our tasks knowing that historically the complaints-handling arm of the Law Society has been seen as a failing organisation. We have often been rightly criticised for delay, with some files remaining open for an inordinately long length of time.



So this year, we concentrated on reducing the number of aged files, with the result being that we had just four files more than 15 months old open at the end of March, while a further 56 files were with the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This is within the target of 65 that was set by the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner.



Back in April 2006, few people thought that we could achieve this target, including some within our own organisation. Over the next year, the plan is for all files to be closed within 12 months.



We have also significantly reduced backlogs of files – these are now allocated to a caseworker within a matter of days. In the past, it could be months.



The LCS has also achieved all the performance targets for planning and use of resources set by the commissioner.



So how have we made these important strides forward? We have made fundamental changes to our organisation through strategic planning. Shortly after taking over as chief executive, Deborah Evans temporarily increased capacity to allow a team of caseworkers to focus solely on the older files, allowing the backlogs to be reduced. Processes were also improved, and as a result productivity increased.



But what was as important was the change in mindset that the LCS underwent, allowing people to believe that they could achieve our targets.



We also entered into a much more constructive relationship with the Office of the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, which allowed the two organisations to work together with the common aim of improving the service provided to our customers.



There will be further improvements during the year which commenced on 1 April 2007. We have submitted a comprehensive plan for the next 12 months to the commissioner, which details a wider change agenda, and look forward to her final decision on its suitability.



An audit is now under way to examine our performance against quality targets. We expect the results of this audit to be more mixed, but are hoping to demonstrate continuous improvement throughout the last plan year. Quality will be our big focus for improvement throughout the next 12 months.



I believe it is important for solicitors to know that there is a top-class and effective complaints-handling organisation dealing with problems that arise with their services.



Our stated aims are to remain independent, impartial, and fair and consistent to all parties when seeking to resolve a complaint.



As I stated earlier, many still consider the LCS to be a failing organisation; it was a comment frequently made during a recent Legal Services Bill debate in the House of Lords. It is for others to consider whether this characterisation is fair; all I can do is provide the evidence.



In 1999/2000, only 60% of cases were dealt with within six months. However, by 2005/06, 79% were dealt with within six months, and more than 50% within three months.



This level of performance compares extremely favourably with that of the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has long been described as a gold-standard consumer redress organisation. Recent Financial Ombudsman Service statistics show that only 32% of its cases are dealt with within three months and 59% within six months.



Removal of complex endowment cases from these statistics still does not allow the performance to exceed that of the Legal Complaints Service. Indeed, removal of the more complex cases, and those unavoidably delayed by referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for investigation into conduct, would in turn improve our performance.



I would not wish anyone to infer from the above that we feel we can now rest on our laurels – far from it. We want to be the best consumer redress organisation in the business and acknowledge that there is still work to do.



Professor Shamit Saggar is chairman of the board of the Legal Complaints Service