Putting complaints in perspective

Great strides have been made over complaints, but more work is needed to ensure that self-regulation is maintained, writes Kevin Martin

It is entirely right that the Law Society chief executive, Janet Paraskeva, should be advising the profession of worrying trends in complaints-handling.

In relation to increasing complaints, there can be no relaxation by solicitors and the Law Society in striving to provide a good service, and when complaints occur, dealing with them in-house.

The increasing caseload at the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) is being addressed by additional investment and giving proper attention to difficult issues, such as staff recruitment and retention, and the most effective handling of complex cases.

These problems have been recognised and addressed, but there can be no complacency about the next few months and the longer term beyond that.

At a time such as this, it is also right to remind ourselves where we have come from and to acknowledge the huge strides made in the past five years.

We had a complaints caseload of more than 17,000, we were taking an age to deal with them and the quality of decision-making was not good.

There has been huge investment by the Law Society, and thus the profession - and terrific dedication by the staff at OSS and members of compliance and supervision committee, and the compliance board.

As a result, more than 50% of new cases are resolved within three months, nearly 80% within six months, and more than 90% within 12 months.

Almost all are resolved within 18 months.

This is all in accordance with the targets in place for the year 2001.

Consumer satisfaction levels with the caseworker are in excess of the target of 65%; for satisfaction with the outcome, the target of 50% has almost been reached.

Even the elusive quality target of 75% was very nearly achieved in July and August of this year: in those months, 71% and 65% respectively of reports by the Legal Services Ombudsman upheld the original OSS decision.

These improvements have occurred during a period when the outgoing ombudsman, Ann Abraham, has been in post.

She is entitled to credit for the fact that she leaves with the OSS in much better shape than she found it.

This is in no small part due to her unrelenting but constructive criticism and recommendations.

The redress scheme has been introduced to provide more informal and speedy handling of service complaints.

Sir Stephen Lander, the independent commissioner - a role developed in consultation with the government and other stakeholders - has been appointed to oversee the scheme.

It is a clich, but nevertheless true, to say that the profession faces a time of unprecedented change.

But the Lord Chancellor's Department consultation paper 'In the Public Interest' clearly envisages increased competition through deregulation.

Some may say there is a need to join a world which many of our competitors moved into years ago.

But if in this brave new world we are to preserve our professional integrity, which is the advantage which we have over so many who would seek to do our jobs, we must retain self-regulation.

David Blunkett's speech at the Law Society conference contained another signal that government would prefer us to be self-regulated.

Any other model would also be more expensive and more bureaucratic.

But we will only keep it if we do it properly.

We are doing it much better but we not yet doing it well enough.

We are committed to continuing our improvement to the point where we can justifiably claim we have reached our goal of being a model regulator.

Kevin Martin represents Coventry and Warwickshire on the Law Society Council.

He is also chairman of the compliance board and sits on the Society's main board