Your article ‘LCS to cut spend by 10% next year’ offers a number of assumptions about the future Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) and the role within it of Legal Complaints Service (LCS) staff (see [2008] Gazette, 4 December, 3).

The LCS has proactively planned to substantially reduce its budget while seeking to maintain its current level of performance. This will be achieved while the organisation moves towards becoming the largest component part of the OLC. It is important that we cut our cloth to suit the changing financial climate while maintaining our high level of service to consumers.

The shortening life of the organisation means that it would be inappropriate to begin further project work at this time so that we focus on the core business and the handover to the OLC.

A number of the planning options currently under consideration do indeed use April 2010 as the opening date for the new organisation. However, the actual date when the OLC comes into being is not yet fixed. This is a matter for the board of the OLC when it becomes active in the first quarter of 2009.

You are right to state that around 80% of LCS staff are expected to transfer to OLC. It is agreed that the OLC will be based in the West Midlands, but we await an announcement on the exact location. This is unlikely to be Leamington Spa.

For our London-based staff to become part of the new organisation would involve relocation to the West Midlands, an option few are expected to consider.

Deborah Evans Chief executive, Legal Complaints Service