The Legal Services Complaints Commissioner (LSCC) last week set out her three-year plan to improve complaints handling by the Law Society.


The commissioner, Zahida Manzoor - who also holds the separate post of Legal Services Ombudsman - unveiled her strategy at an event in London attended by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, who praised the Society for its work so far but said there is more to be done.



The LSCC has a range of powers, leading up to imposing a penalty of up to 1% of income or £1 million, whichever is the smaller, in the event of no improvement.



Ms Manzoor, who has been in post since February, has already had PA Consulting Group review the Society's processes, made recommendations - such as asking the Society to undertake a systematic analysis of where delays occur - and requested a plan of action, which was submitted in September and is now under discussion.

The office of the LSCC will have 16 staff, costing £1.34 million this year, and £1.72 million in subsequent years. The Society has to pay the majority of the costs.



Making it clear she will take a hard line, Ms Manzoor said it should take two years to make the necessary improvements and a further year to show they can be maintained.



Manzoor: taking hard line
She published a set of proposed targets for the three years from April 2005. The first year's are similar to the current targets, but get progressively tougher and by 2008 seek to ensure that 99% of complaints are closed within a year - under the present targets, the Law Society has to dispose of 85% of complaints in that time.



In his speech, Lord Falconer said the Society has 'demonstrated a strong commitment to improving their complaint-handling processes in recent months and years... Customer satisfaction levels have increased, and there are other areas where progress is beginning to be made. But there is still more to be done'.



A Law Society spokesman said: 'The Society has produced a plan for the next three years that will continue to deliver sustained improvements to our complaints service, matching or exceeding the performance of other complaints handlers.



'It is important that the targets we set are realistic if we are to build on the steadily improving performance over the past year.'



Speaking from the floor, Professor Avrom Sherr, director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, said looking at the Society's processes was a 'distraction'. 'The problem is the lawyers themselves,' he said.