In his column (see [1995] Gazette, 27 September, 12) President Martin Mears refer s to the responses which he and I have made to the Law Society's consultation paper on the supervision of solicitors and the future of the Solicitors Complaints Bureau.There are indeed certain areas where we are in agreement (for example, that the Law Society should take back under its direct control most of the SCB's purely regulatory functions, and that there needs to be a change in the 'complaints culture' so that solicitors adopt a more commercial approach to settling complaints).

But on complaints handling there are some important differences in the proposals which we have put forward for the new complaints body to succeed the SCB.Mr Mears wants to abolish the SCB and have complaints dealt with by a Law Society client care unit, with the added safeguard of a 'visitor' overseeing the unit's work.

On the other hand, I have proposed that the new complaints body should be as independent of the Law Society as possible (bearing in mind that it would still be an establishment of the Law Society) and that it should be managed by a supervisory board having a majority of lay members and a lay chairperson.The new body which I am advocating would still continue to handle client complaints about poor service and professional misconduct in the same way as the SCB does at present.

An important part of its role would also be the monitoring of compliance with practice rule 15 in order to encourage solicitors to settle as many complaints as possible under their own in-house complaints procedure.The big difference between the SCB's present role and what I am proposing is that the new complaints body would no longer deal with matters involving default and dishonesty, which I agree with Mr Mears should be passed back to the Law Society along with most of the SCB's other regulatory functions.As far as complaints are concerned, having come this far in setting up complaints handling 'at arm's length', I do not believe that the Law Society can now back-track.

Rather than bringing complaints handling in-house, I would prefer to see the Law Society going further down the road towards an independent complaints body by giving lay people and consumer representatives a bigger say in how complaints are dealt with.

Despite the criticisms of the SCB made by the National Consumer Council and others, I happen to believe that a self-regulatory complaints system can still be made to work more or less to most people's satisfaction, given the right framework.But if, in a few years' time, the new system (whatever form it may take) fails to command more support than the SCB, which has sometimes been unfairly criticised in my view, the demand for a totally independent body as proposed by the National Consumer Council is likely to prove to be irresistible.