The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) has committed itself to a tough new complaints-handling plan for 2007/08 that includes closing 67% of cases within three months of receiving them.


The plan, which was formally accepted this week by Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC) Zahida Manzoor, has set a series of targets that are tougher than those in the 2006/07 plan.



The new plan stipulates that by 31 March 2008 there should be no more than 65 cases that have been open for 12 months or more (a year ago, there were 486 files which had been open longer than 15 months). It also calls for 93% of complaints to be acknowledged within five working days of receipt.



Failure to meet the targets could result in a fine by the LSCC. Last year, she issued a fine for producing an inadequate plan.



Ms Manzoor said the 'greater collaborative approach' adopted by the LCS this year had produced a plan that focused not only on improving processes and procedures for complaints-handling, but would also help deliver 'wider business improvements'.



However, she called on the LCS to be 'more proactive in managing performance against the targets and delivery of the plan earlier in the year'.



She said there has previously been a 'reactive approach' that led to effort being put in during the latter part of the plan year once it became clear that some targets were unlikely to be met.



The LCS rejected this label. Chief executive Deborah Evans said the description 'could be said to apply to an organisation that no longer exists, given that the changes seen in the past year have fundamentally changed the way we operate'.



The LCS met the timeliness and planning targets in the 2006/07 plan, but fell short on the quality targets. The LSCC has still to decide whether to take any action over this. Ms Evans, said: 'We recognise that we can still make improvements and the ambitious targets agreed for the current year clearly reflect this.'



See also Consuming Interest



Jonathan Rayner