The Legal Complaints Service (LCS) has hit back at the decision to fine the Law Society £275,000 for failing to deliver an adequate complaints-handling plan for 2008/09, branding it ‘completely unjustified’.

Zahida Manzoor, the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, said: ‘It is with regret that I have to announce a penalty for the Law Society – and for the second time in two years’. The Society was fined £220,000 for an inadequate plan for 2006/07.

Manzoor added: ‘While the Law Society carries the financial consequences of this failure to provide an adequate plan, the LCS must accept the lion’s share of the responsibility as it failed to demonstrate a commitment to achieve important targets.’

Accusing the LCS of wanting to remain ‘within a comfort zone’ and not providing value for money, Manzoor also voiced concerns that the plan – which should have started on 1 April – only committed the LCS to meeting some of her targets. She said: ‘There are no valid excuses for the plan submitted.’

LCS board chairman Professor Shamit Saggar said the decision was ‘completely unjustified’ and distorted the true picture of the effectiveness of the organisation.

‘By any reasonable measure this is a disproportionate action that brings no benefit to either the legal profession or consumers of legal services,’ he said. ‘You do not fine a successful organisation, let alone one that in fact leads the way in consumer redress.’

He added that improvements in the service – to a level comparable with the ‘very best consumer redress organisations’ – have been recognised by the likes of Which? and the National Consumer Council.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said: ‘We disagree with the commissioner’s decision. The fact is that the LCS has delivered a year-on-year improvement in terms of the quality and speed with which it handles complaints.’

Manzoor said she would ‘shortly’ announce her separate decision on whether the LCS delivered its 2007/08 plan.