When the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) was launched on 1 September 1996, it became the subject of many taunts.

Not so much because of the seemingly uphill task it had in displacing the tarnished image of the Solicitors Complaints Bureau (SCB), but because any number of less than flattering acronyms for it sprung to mind.

Fifteen months later and the serious task of retaining the profession's self-regulation of complaints handling has become paramount.

The well publicised failures of the SCB have famously put the profession in 'the last chance saloon.'Speaking in June 1997, just before he retired as Legal Services Ombudsman, Michael Barnes said he 'half' thought self-regulation should be removed immediately.

But his final report issued the same month indicated that, with the launch of the OSS, there was 'genuine hope' that dissatisfaction with complaints handling could be reduced.

Mr Barnes said the OSS needed time before it was judged.

His successor, Ann Abraham, has adopted a similar position.

Confirmation of the OSS's immediate future came last month from Geoff Hoon, junior minister at the Lord Chancellor's Department.

Responding to a request for a statutory complaints procedure against solicitors, Mr Hoon said: 'The department has no plans to create a new complaints handling body ...

I agree with the Legal Services Ombudsman that it will take two to three years before the [OSS] can be properly judged by results.'So with the publication this week of the OSS's first annual report, what does director Peter Ross feel he has achieved? 'We have started making changes.

It will take time for those changes to manifest themselves.

If we fail, the consequences are serious.

The one thing we must never do as an organisation is stop changing.

We have to keep our responsiveness to the demands of consumers and the demands of the profession,' he says.Mr Ross nominates several successes in the first year: publication of the client care guide and the 'positive clamour' from local law societies for seminars on the issue; Lawyer Line -- the confidential telephone helpline for solicitors facing complaints -- which took 520 calls in its first three months and was a 'litmus test' of whether solicitors trusted the OSS enough to use it; the increased profile of the OSS through its bulletin and the 'conduct matters' column, both published in the Gazette; and a new focus on the cost of default initiative.

But the OSS has not gone as far as Mr Ross would have liked in some areas.

'It would have been brilliant if we could have dealt with the delay issue earlier.

I suspect we are about three months behind where I would like to have been,' he admits.

But the case closure rate is now higher than ever -- about 2000 a month.

Mr Ross says he recognises that the procedures inherited from the SCB are insufficient to improve the situation further and so this week, he is announcing a new system to deal with minor cases, which should see them concluded within five months.The annual report reveals that the OSS's 'backlog busting' exercise for cases of poor service -- over which most criticisms about delay are made -- has been a measurable success.

From a caseload exceeding 7,000 in May 1997, it had fallen to 5,000 by August and according to the report it is hoped to clear the entire backlog by the end of 1997, which would mean a caseload of around 3,000.

Mr Ross concedes that this is unlikely to be wholly achieved, as there is a hard core of very difficult cases that will not be cleared in time.On the cost of default initiative, Mr Ross says: 'The identification of problem firms is an area where we could do better and where our new IT system will assist enormously.' He also acknowledges the problem of changing the OSS's culture: 'It is a frustration for anyone who wants to make progress [but] it is a fact of life that culture takes time to change.

There have been significant advances, but we still have a long way to go.'Early in 1998, the OSS will publish performance targets.

But is this not simply providing the rope with which others will happily hang the OSS? 'That's one way of looking at it.

On the other hand, I am a firm believer in transparency.

It helps to build confidence.

I do not see why we should not set out the expectations people can have of us,' Mr Ross responds.

Plans for the next year include a greater emphasis on risk analysis and management.

The OSS wants to construct an effective system to identify firms that are at risk with the aim of targeting compliance and monitoring efforts at them.

Mr Ross also plans to ask an external organisation to test how successful his customer focus initiative has been -- a response to Mr Barnes's repeated emphasis on the need to see the complainants' point of view.

One area where self-regulation seems likely to be lost is financial services.

The new Financial Services Authority should assume control over solicitors who act as independent financial advisers (IFAs), but Mr Ross will not be drawn on the implications until the situation is clear.

It could affect jobs in the OSS's monitoring and investigation unit, which spends around one third of its time on investment business, while the OSS receives £1.2 million from investment business certificates.It is possible that the Law Society will carry on regulating solicitor IFAs on behalf of the authority, and Mr Ross clearly thinks it should.

'It is important to ensure the regulatory burden is appropriate and not aggravated by having two regulatory bodies looking at firms' work,' he argues.

It is better to have a single body monitoring firms' activities 'in the round,' Mr Ross insists.So how will the OSS's first report be seen by a media and public waiting to jump on any failures? Mr Ross replies: 'I think it will be seen as realistic.

I am not making any claims to have changed everything overnight.

This report talks about having established the foundations.

That needed to be done.

It is only 18 months since the Law Society Council made the decision to change from the SCB and I have been in the post for less than that.

Clearly those who view us objectively -- the [Legal Services] Ombudsman most importantly -- do see we have put in place those foundations.

I have no doubt that others will seek to criticise the report and the performance.

Some of those criticisms may be valid.

Some of them will not.

What I would say to anybody who demands faster change is that there is no magic wand, otherwise that would have been waved 18 months ago.'