The National Consumer Council (NCC) has proposed that the Law Society should lose its complaints-handling function, currently carried out by the Solicitors Complaints Bureau.

The work should, it says, be transferred to an independent legal services complaints council which would employ an ombudsman.

It is certainly an interesting suggestion and one that deserves a serious response.In effect, the NCC is advocating a switch to a complaints-handling system similar to those which exist for insurance companies and banks.

Individual solicitors' firms would keep their in-house complaints-handling procedures, but complainants could then go straight to an ombudsman who would be accountable to the new council.What are the main arguments on which the NCC based its proposal? First, the NCC claims that its research shows that the bureau is not seen as independent and, secondly, that it favours solicitors.In fact, the research on which this is based was very limited in scope, consisting of two questions on a national opinion survey, an analysis of 96 questionnaires and case papers sent in by complainants who responded to a letter from the NCC in local newspapers, and a detailed analysis of the bureau's files on only 15 cases.Much more comprehensive research would need to be carried out than that conducted by the NCC before another major reorganisation of complaints handling could be justified.

Such research would need to quantify the actual level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction experienced by the majority of SCB complainants.The legal services ombudsman's office investigates the bureau's handling of hundreds of complaints every year and it is certainly not my view that the SCB favours solicitors in the sense that it is biased towards their side of the argument.

The SCB genuinely sets out to investigate complaints impartially.It is an inevitable consequence of self-regulation that some complainants are going to feel that the bureau is paying more attention to what solicitors say than to what the complainant says.The NCC has a point, however, when it refers to a 'power imbalance' between solicitors and complainants.

Solicitors are bound to be more aware of the considerations which will weigh heavily with the SCB and can tailor their responses accordingly.The correction of that power imbalance is precisely why my office exists.

The present system combines self-regulation by the professional body at the first stage with an independent, statutory ombudsman to whom complainants can then go if they are not satisfied with the professional body's handling of the complaint.In practice, only about 10% of the complaints received by the bureau are referred on to me.

The theory behind this model is that the professional body is given control over the way the vast majority of complaints are dealt with at the initial stage but has to bear the cost, and complainants have the reassurance of knowing that there is an independent second stage which they can go on to if they are not satisfied.In my view, both the existing complaints-handling system and that proposed by the NCC are perfectly respectable ways of organising a complaints-handling system.

But in both cases there are certain conditions that have to be satisfied.For the present system to work well it is essential that it operates fairly and efficiently and is able to deal with complaints within a reasonable time scale.

Solicitors also have to be prepared to fund the self-regulatory part of the system as a quid pro quo for the privilege of being given the major role in running the system.If the profession is going to lose its complaints -handling role as the NCC proposes, can solicitors still be expected to pick up the bill? Another fundamental question is whether an independent council is the appropriate body to determine professional conduct issues and oversee compliance with the principles and the practice rules.The model proposed by the NCC works in the case of industries like banking and insurance, but a profession comprising 60,000 practitioners (particularly the legal profession) requires far more detailed regulation than an industry consisting of a comparatively small number of large institutions.As Law Society Secretary- General John Hayes remarked last week, no complaints system delivers 100% satisfaction to its complainants, nor could it.

Many complainants, perhaps even the majority, are likely to remain to some extent dissatisfied.It is therefore not surprising that the SCB from time to time becomes a target for criticism, not only from consumer organisations like the NCC and sometimes myself as legal services ombudsman, but also at times from solicitors themselves who are on the receiving end of its investigations.

It is not in the nature of the bureau's lot that it is likely to be much loved.The central question which the NCC has raised in its report is whether the time has come to abandon self-regulation by the legal profession.

It is a fair question to raise, but I believe the NCC's answer is somewhat premature.In my view, we need much more information about the pros and cons of the present system.

For example, does the professionalism which the SCB brings to bear in its investigation of complaints justify the additional time taken by a professional body investigation in between solicitors' own practice rule 15 procedures and recourse to the ombudsman?Are the existing powers and resources of the legal services ombudsman a sufficient safeguard to reinforce what is primarily a self-regulatory system? These are fundamental questions but they will only be answered by considerably more detailed and comprehensive research than that so far undertaken by the NCC.