Lander: OSS needs new customer focus

The Law Society may need to give the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) extra resources so it can be more consumer-oriented and accept responsibility for issues outside its immediate complaints jurisdiction, the Society's independent commissioner has said.

Delivering his 'first impressions' of the Society's regulatory function in a paper to its ruling council this week, former MI5 chief Sir Stephen Lander said the OSS - while doing good work - must 'rethink its strategic view of the customer'.

The problem, he said, was that it took 'an approach which looks at the consumer through the prism of the Society's own regulations and jurisdiction', which he characterised as an 'insider view'.

Instead, the OSS needs to take an 'outsider view'.

Sir Stephen explained: 'The OSS should not, of course, favour the client over the solicitor, or stop approaching each case strictly on its merits.

Those remain the most important requirements.

But it would involve the Society explicitly and visibly accepting the role of responding to the layman when things have gone wrong with a solicitor, regardless in the first instance of the cause or the context.

'The current more limited approach, which excludes any OSS involvement in a range of issues affecting clients, has understandably been driven by the imperative of external targets for work in progress and complaints closed.

'Those provide a disincentive to accepting responsibility for issues outside the Society's own immediate complaints jurisdiction.

This cannot be in the layman's, or in the longer term in the profession's, interests.'

Sir Stephen said the Society would have to provide accessible consumer education and make the OSS a more visible entry point to the various avenues available for redress.

He said it may require more telephone lines to the OSS help desk, 'more up-front support for the layman', and more experienced front-end staff to handle initial complaints.

Sir Stephen said his first impression was of little conflict between the Society's dual role as regulator and representative of the profession.

He said caseworkers have 'a healthy scepticism of unsupported solicitor reassurances and no propensity to side with the profession'.

However, he identified three areas of concern which he intends to examine in more detail: the OSS's language and procedures, which he said could be intimidating to the layman; the accessibility and visibility of the OSS's role in resolving complaints, noting among other things that the name of the OSS does not obviously indicate its work, nor is there any advertising in Yellow Pages; and the handling of misconduct complaints with the danger of the complainant being 'left behind' when the focus of enquiry shifts to the solicitor.

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'The independent commissioner's first impressions of our complaints-handling procedures provides clear messages for the Society as we come to terms with the demands of a more consumer-orientated public and the need for all our procedures to be more customer friendly.

'In October last year, the Law Society Council demonstrated its commitment to further improvement in the regulation of solicitors and in the handling of client complaints when it committed a further 21 million over the next three years.'

A Lord Chancellor's Department spokeswoman said: 'We have received Sir Stephen Lander's report and are currently considering it.

We are working closely with the OSS to ensure that they continue to move towards better services for the public and bring real benefits to clients.'

Neil Rose