Ombudsman asks for £1.2m more to handle increasing demand

The organisation running the legal ombudsman service has warned it cannot deliver the changes it wants without an extra £1.2m. The Office for Legal Complaints has proposed a budget of £17.95m for 2024/25 – representing an increase of almost 7% - as it continues to focus on resolving cases early.

The rising budget would account for a 5% pay award, a small increase in staff numbers and 'exceptional costs' of £275,000 for IT upgrades and a new lease agreement.

Costs of the Legal Ombudsman are met by the profession and the current budget plan is now open to consultation until 22 December.

The consultation states: ‘While every effort is being made to absorb the increases in demand outlined in this business plan – and LeO is making a continued reduction in waiting times and the investigation queue – LeO’s resource is stretched. Any further sustained increase in demand would require additional resource and for LeO to consider further in-year budget requests.’

In 2023/24 so far, the ombudsman has received 61,000 early contacts and enquiries – 13% more than in the same period last year – and a 5% increase in new customer complaints through the website. This followed a 6.4% increase in complaints last year, which was higher than LeO’s assumptions. 

The organisation says that carrying out upfront checks on all cases has taken ‘significantly more time and resource than originally anticipated’ and restricted the flow of cases going through later stages.

A number of factors are expected to cause an increase in complaints about lawyers in the coming years. Nearly one-third of complaints resolved last year involved firms’ inadequate initial complaint handling and there are concerns that this will continue to be a significant source of enquiries. Costs of living pressures on consumers and firms may also cause parties to be less willing to resolve complaints informally, while delays in the wider justice system may increase levels of dissatisfaction about the service received.

Given the demand so far this year, LeO expects to resolve 8,300 complaints in 2024/24 (up by 2.5%) but intends to reduce the backlog by 40% to 1,650 cases by the end of March 2025. By that point, the organisation says the average wait time for cases to be resolved will be 145 days.

Introducing the consultation document, OLC chair Elisabeth Davies said: ‘We know many in the sector recognise the business case for this “invest to save” approach: the time and resource gains from the early resolution and prevention of complaints, and the commercial benefits of more satisfied customers.

‘As things currently stand, LeO won’t be able to deliver on these ambitions. In this first year, we’re not proposing any large upfront investment, but instead a minimal increase in capacity – essential for us to do the groundwork required to deliver more over the course of the strategy.’

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