Complaints: commissioner's panel 'compatible' with similar group advising Lord Falconer

The Legal Services Complaints Commissioner this week unveiled a consumer board with a brief to influence the forthcoming legal services reforms.


The board has eight members, whom the commissioner, Zahida Manzoor, said have 'an invaluable wealth of consumer experience and knowledge, with the aim of ensuring that the consumers' voice on complaints-handling is not lost during the current reform of legal services'.


The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, already has a consumer panel, advising him on the legal services White Paper and two of the organisations on it - Citizens Advice and Which? - are also on Ms Manzoor's board, in the shape of chief executive David Harker and head of campaigns Louise Hanson respectively.


Colin Brown, director of market transformations at the Office of Fair Trading, is on the board, while a colleague of his is a special adviser to Lord Falconer's panel.


Ms Manzoor said she saw her board as 'wholly compatible' with the work of Lord Falconer's panel. A Department for Constitutional Affairs spokeswoman said it welcomed 'a range of input' into the reforms.


Also on the board are Professors Hazel Genn and Avrom Sherr, both leading legal academics; Steven Silver, a former private practice solicitor who is now head of legal services and deputy secretary at United Co-operatives; Rob Chester, head of risk and deputy company secretary at Asda; and the Countess of Eglinton and Winton, who has a long history of charitable fund-raising.


Ms Manzoor said there was no private practice solicitor on the board because it is about 'better meeting the needs of the consumer and therefore members have been appointed with this as a key priority'. But she said members had experience of the profession and 'the wider aspects of legal services delivery'.


She also pointed to her existing six-strong advisory board 'which has a number of individuals with a legal background'. These are a partner at City firm Slaughter and May, a solicitor who left practice in 1974 to become a film producer, and a leading criminal law silk.


A Law Society Consumer Complaints Service spokesman said: 'We are committed to working with the commissioner as we continue to achieve improvements to the way complaints about solicitors are dealt with, and look forward to welcoming her board to Leamington Spa to see our work at first hand.'


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