The legal ombudsman has been urged to radically alter its policy of unpublishing decisions against law firms after 12 months.
In contrast to organisations such as the pensions ombudsman and information commissioner, whose decisions are published indefinitely, the legal complaints handler has a blanket approach of removing decisions from its public website after a year.
Access to justice charity Blind Justice UK said the policy has resulted in around 11,000 decisions being removed from the ombudsman's website, depriving the public from making a reasoned judgement on which providers to use.
In a research briefing and audit released this week, Blind Justice said the legal complaints handler does not explain why it is an outlier among other public-facing organisations.
The briefing says that consumers of legal services are often dealing with some of the most consequential and vulnerable circumstances of their life but they have no long-term records to rely on. ‘The audit found no published legal or regulatory requirement imposing a 12-month limit,’ it added. ‘The limit appears to be a policy choice rather than a demonstrated legal inevitability.’
Blind Justice said the legal ombudsman already combines the shortest general publication window with the least substantive information. The complaints handler does not usually publish its decisions in full – although it has recently made exceptions – but instead publishes data rows, the provider’s name, the date, the area of law and the remedy, with no reasoning given of any kind.
The briefing will be submitted in response to the ombudsman’s ongoing consultation on the publication of decisions. Blind Justice recommended that decisions and reasons are published and remain so indefinitely.
Such a change is already on the cards, with the consultation proposing greater transparency around publication of decisions. LeO said it intends to move away from publishing high-level statistical data towards a position where every final decision will be considered for full online publication. Published decisions will be redacted or drafted in a way that ensures the complainant cannot be directly or indirectly identified.
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