Complaints: ombudsman accused of conflict of interest as 'police, judge and jury'

The Law Society this week launched an unprecedented attack on Zahida Manzoor, the Legal Services Ombudsman (LSO) and Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC), saying she 'appears to be damaging the potential of our new Consumer Complaints Service'.


Chief executive Janet Paraskeva also accused her of a 'clear conflict of interest' in holding the separate posts, which allow her 'to act as police, judge and jury'. This relates to her LSCC role of setting targets for the Law Society over the quality of its complaints-handling, which are met depending on her decisions in individual cases as LSO.


Ms Paraskeva said the government had ignored an independent review that recommended against combining the roles in the same person.


The condemnation came in the wake of Ms Manzoor, in her role as LSCC, declaring as inadequate the Law Society's proposed plan for handling complaints against solicitors over the next year, claiming it neither includes all the targets she set, nor aims to deliver sufficient improvements. She will now consider whether to impose a fine, which can be a maximum of either £1 million or 1% of the Society's annual income, whichever is lower.


With her LSO hat on, she then issued a report claiming that the Law Society has failed to investigate properly miners' complaints against their solicitors.


President Kevin Martin said the Society had worked hard to establish a constructive working relationship with Ms Manzoor. 'It is regrettable that rarely does she give the Law Society due credit for the massive improvements which have occurred since the turn of the century.'


Ms Paraskeva continued that statistics are being interpreted in a way that does not reflect the true situation. She said: 'Instead of charting what has been a success story... she appears to be damaging the potential of our new Consumer Complaints Service, and that cannot be in the interests of consumers.'


Ms Manzoor said she was disappointed by the remarks but insisted that, despite some improvements which she has previously acknowledged, the Society is not putting in place the step-change she believes is required. She highlighted the Society's failure to agree to targets that virtually no cases older than 15 months should be in the system and to write to a complainant with confirmation of the issues raised in their complaint within 60 days.


A Department for Constitutional Affairs spokeswoman denied there was a conflict of interest in one person having the two roles, saying they are 'distinct but complementary'. She added that Ms Manzoor's experience as LSO meant that as LSCC, 'she was able to speedily engage with the Society on delivering improvements to consumers'.