With the launch of the Consumer Complaints Service, the law society will focus on the swift resolution of grievances.

Janet Paraskeva examines the remit of the body to replace the OSS

Dealing with consumer complaints is a challeng-ing task for any business - and it certainly has been for the Law Society in its handling of complaints about solicitors.

Significant backlogs were a feature of the work in the late 1990s, but more recently, modernised procedures have improved things.

We are constantly looking for ways to improve how we handle complaints.

This is the aspect of our work that probably has the most immediate and most significant impact on both solicitors and their clients.

Our record on complaints is also followed closely by ministers and MPs, as well as by other stakeholders such as the Legal Services Complaints Commis-sioner, the Master of the Rolls, and the Office of Fair Trading.

And, of course, the review of the regulatory framework for legal services in England and Wales, led by Sir David Clementi, now shines an extra spotlight on the whole process.

Efficiency and fairness in handling complaints can have a positive impact on the public's perception of the profession - and we need to be evolving and improving the way we operate all the time.

The Law Society's independent commissioner, Sir Stephen Lander, was appointed two years ago to provide an independent, external viewpoint on our complaints handling.

Last year, he put forward several particularly helpful ideas for improvements to the service offered, including the proposal that consumer redress should be separated from the Law Society's other regulatory work, such as training, registration and ethical advice.

Building on those recommen-dations, we have set in train some important changes within the regulation arm of the Society and these will be implemented over the next few weeks.

A new and separate Consumer Complaints Service will focus on the consumer complaints work previously undertaken by the former Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS).

This is not merely a change of name - the whole approach will be very different.

The work of the OSS covered a broad range of both service and conduct complaints, and included adjudication, and investigation and enforcement.

The Consumer Complaints Service will be able to focus exclusively on the swift resolution of complaints from consumers about the service provided by their solicitors.

Like the OSS, the Consumer Complaints Service will be the 'front door' through which all complaints are received, but where a complaint gives rise to concern about the conduct of a solicitor, it will be filtered out and handled by the new compliance directorate.

Ian Wright, who was appointed director of consumer complaints in January this year, will lead the Consumer Complaints Service.

Mr Wright has a strong track record of managing operations of this type, and of employing to great effect the latest information technology and complaints-handling processes.

He and his team will be working to increase the visibility and accessibility of the service we offer to consumers of legal services, and to deliver a 'best-in-class' service.

This new approach will benefit the profession as we resolve more and more complaints quickly and relatively painlessly.

Alongside the Consumer Complaints Service, but separate from it, will be the compliance directorate, which will take a new, risk-management approach to dealing with conduct matters in the profession.

Action taken will be proportionate to the level of seriousness of a particular case.

Sometimes guidance or training is a more suitable response to a problem than punitive action.

Practices that adopt a positive approach to resolving conduct issues in this way will have everything to gain.

This approach will free resources for tackling the serious cases of misconduct that do so much to harm the profession's reputation.

We are also taking this opportunity to implement one of the independent commissioner's recommendations from 2003, by removing the automatic right of review in the adjudication of complaints of poor service.

A relatively small number of these cases go to formal adjudication, and after 19 April the final decision in those cases will rest with in-house adjudicators.

All these changes will come into effect shortly after Easter and will be accompanied by a public awareness programme.

Once the Consumer Complaints Service is launched, the OSS will no longer exist.

Detailed information will be provided to help complainants, consumer agencies and solicitors to understand the changes.

Although these changes do not sound so revolutionary when written down in black and white, they amount to far more than a management reorganisation.

We are working towards a system where clients feel that their complaints have been dealt with quickly and sensibly, where solicitors are encouraged to resolve problems practically and cheaply, and where the Law Society's resources are primarily focused on the most serious cases of misconduct.

I hope that this new system will really enable us to get the balance right.

Janet Paraskeva is the Law Society chief executive