LSB tightens grip on bar regulator over reform delays

The oversight regulator has stepped up enforcement action against the Bar Standards Board after failing to be convinced that improvements were happening quickly enough.

The Legal Services Board agreed at its April meeting to escalate informal enforcement action and wrote to the BSB last week confirming the decision.

The escalation will bring limited change: the BSB will be invited to agree voluntary undertakings regarding performance targets and monitoring of its reform programme. Progress will be checked through quarterly reports and meetings between the LSB and BSB.

Earlier this year, the barristers’ regulator failed an LSB inspection for its leadership and delivery standards, and only partially passed on its approach to regulation.

The BSB had already been through a review of its enforcement standard, carried out by law firm Fieldfisher last year, and the LSB said some improvements have been made since.

But the BSB has continued to show ‘sufficient urgency or pace’ in addressing concerns, according to the letter from LSB interim chair Catherine Brown. She added that the bar regulator had provided ‘insufficient assurance’ that it was well led and capable of working to the required standard. Its failure to meet many of its key performance indicators for authorisation and enforcement was another source of concern.

Brown said: ‘This is an escalation of informal action, following the BSB’s failure to fully deliver improvements under previous improvement plans. The LSB’s enforcement policy provides for informal resolution prior to consideration of more formal intervention; we may go on to consider the latter if we are unable to reach agreed undertakings, or if the undertakings are agreed but subsequently not met by the BSB.’

A response from BSB chair Kathryn Stone has also been published, in which she stressed that the regulator is ‘reforming with pace and purpose’.

Stone added: ‘We are sorry, against that background, that the information we have provided about our progress after each board meeting and the evidence submitted to inform your regulatory performance assessment has not yet provided the assurance you seek, but are confident that closer familiarity with the work of the Bar Standards Board will close the perception gap.’

The SRA was similarly criticised earlier this year, but the LSB has agreed that there is no need at this stage to escalate enforcement action against the solicitors’ regulator.