The bar does not expect to have to make any changes to its complaints procedures following the Clementi review of the legal profession, the head of the Bar Council's professional standards and legal services department said last week.

Speaking at the launch of the 2003 report of the council's lay complaints commissioner, Mark Stobbs said the bar's good track record with the Legal Services Ombudsman (LSO), Zahida Manzoor, means it should not need to change its complaints procedures.

He said: 'The Bar Council view is that we do a good job in handling complaints, and we have a pretty good record with the LSO over the past 12 years.

'We have an extremely cost-effective system, with a huge amount of involvement for free by barristers, for the public good.

If it were taken away there would be more bureaucracy, more expense, and no better results.

'We have taken on board the ombudsman's comments about our response rates.

But we do as good a job as anyone else would.'

Mr Stobbs said he believed the current system would fit the model B regime for complaints handling suggested in the Clementi consultation document, where professional bodies retain their complaints-handling roles subject to oversight by a new legal services board.

Lay commissioner Michael Scott said he had received 466 complaints from the public in 2003, up five from the previous year.

Of 158 complaints investigated by the LSO, five were criticised and five were recommended for reconsideration.

Mr Scott, whose office was itself fined 500 for an upsetting remark made in the course of dismissing one of the complaints, said: 'The complaints situation is well under control and our approach is endorsed by the LSO.'

In her interim report in November, Ms Manzoor said she was heartened by the bar's constructive response to her concerns about turnaround time statistics.

She added in the report: 'The Bar Council's complaints handling is not cause for concern at this stage.'

Rachel Rothwell