The Law Society may have to find an extra £2 million to meet the complaints-handling targets set by the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, it has emerged.

Zahida Manzoor, who last month criticised the Society's initial plan for improving its services as 'inadequate', has given Chancery Lane until next Monday to come up with a revised plan.


Law Society: deadline set

Ms Manzoor said she is 'optimistic' that she will reach an agreement with the Law Society, although she has warned that levying a penalty would be a possible sanction if it fails to deliver a plan without good cause.

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'We were disappointed that she found our initial plan - which we believed was realistic and achievable - inadequate. However, she wants more information about the plan and she is pushing us to achieve even tighter targets. We are so close to her figures. What we are doing is looking very hard at what additional resources we will need to meet her time targets.'


This may be in the region of £2 million, said Ms Paraskeva. The extra money will be in addition to the £4.9 million increase in next year's complaints-handling budget - up from £11.3 million to £16.2 million. Around £1 million of that will go towards meeting the cost of the LSCC's office.


Ms Manzoor said: 'The Society's plan did not include figures so I could not form a view whether the money currently being allocated is being used effectively. If it is now considering putting in additional money, I need to know how and where it will be used so I can see if the budget is proportionate to the task required.'


Meanwhile, the Law Society has agreed to stop the practice of 'rounding down' complaint-handling times. Currently, if a complaint is closed within, statistically, 3.49 months, it is counted as having been closed within three months.


Ms Manzoor estimated that stopping rounding down would mean the Society actually closes 49% of complaints within three months, rather than the current figure of 53%. Ms Manzoor has set a target of 55% for 2005-6.


Ms Paraskeva said: 'The LSCC is correct - stopping the practice of "rounding down", as we have promised to do from January 2005, would significantly reduce the number of cases appearing to be closed within three months. This demonstrates the stretching nature of the targets being set by the LSCC.'


See feature


Grania Langdon-Down