I have no deep-seated objection to some regulation and control, but I would like it to be both relevant and necessary.

Studies and reports are all very well and may give a broad view, but they tend to be too anonymous, too impersonal and too carefully drawn to get to the heart of the matter.

In my dream world, no regulator would be able to govern a professional's activities without practical experience of the latter's work.

Before the crime costs pilot scheme (see [2003] Gazette, 13 November, 1) goes much further, the Department for Constitutional Affairs should second someone sufficiently senior to influence policy to work full time for at least one month in a firm of solicitors in a pilot area, with an unequivocal undertaking that the results of the experience will be reported publicly by both the person seconded and one of the solicitors involved, both named and reporting personally, and that each will respond fully to the other's comments on the reports.

Having successfully piloted the concept with criminal law costs, it could be extended to all fields of activity that the government seeks to regulate.

Roderick Ramage, solicitor, Stafford