Targeting complaints

ZAHIDA MANZOOR, THE NEW LEGAL SERVICES OMBUDSMAN, OUTLINES HER STRATEGY TO JONATHAN AMES

Zahida Manzoor only took up her role as Legal Services Ombudsman a few weeks ago.

Yet she is already exhibiting an enthusiasm for the job that ensures she will be a significant player on the legal profession's landscape.

Top of Ms Manzoor's agenda is the potential restructuring of the complaints-handling superstructure for the legal professions.

She is clear that one of the main reasons she was attracted to the position - after spending time as a member of the NHS policy board and as the Northern and Yorkshire regional NHS executive chairwoman - was the distinct possibility that it will evolve into a wider role of complaints commissioner.

Under reserve powers in the Access to Justice Bill 1999, the Lord Chancellor can transfer direct responsibility for supervising complaints handling in the legal profession - including the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) - to an independent commissioner.

Ms Manzoor explains: 'If we are going to look at regulation and the regulatory framework - whether that is self-regulation or not - the complaints commissioner idea is quite an exciting one because it puts at the heart improving services to consumers.

The commissioner could actually set targets, which could include raising standards of service, and measure performance against those targets.

If the targets are not met, appropriate measures could be taken and this could include fines for failing to meet those targets.

'At the moment I can't do that.

I discuss targets with the Lord Chancellor - the Lord Chancellor has asked me to do so.

My office can then monitor performance against those targets, but I can't do anything if they are missed.

This affects my ability to address failures in the system.

I have the power to make binding orders, but these only relate to individual cases.

'Therefore, activating the role of complaints commissioner may become necessary to ensure that service standards are improved and targets are properly monitored and hit.

If this means that I am able to get an improvement in the standard of service given to the users of legal services generally, it would seem appropriate to activate the additional powers.

If there is an organisation that is consistently failing consumers who are unhappy with the standard of service they have received from their legal representatives, then how do you try to bring it up to standard? Perhaps the best way is to adopt the carrot and stick approach.'

All of which raises the question: is the OSS failing consumers? In Ms Manzoor's view, the position is delicately poised.

'It is difficult for me to judge after just one meeting with the OSS whether they are doing enough.

What I can says is that they are putting a lot of money into this area.

In my view, 21 million of new money is a fair commitment.

So it would appear that they are serious about addressing the issues.

'My role is to ensure that, having given that commitment, they deliver on it.

And it is the delivery that I have a big question about.

The complaints backlog at the OSS has been increasing steadily for the past two years - and from around 4,000 at the beginning of last year to 7,000 at the beginning of this year.

And some of these cases have been waiting for resolution for up to and longer than two years.

That is absolutely unacceptable.

'There is a three-year massive improvement strategy for the OSS.

But they are having real problems recruiting staff.

And if you have problems recruiting then you are not going to be able to handle the volume of work.' At one level, the new ombudsman has a practical suggestion for the OSS - spread the recruitment net wider.

And as an adopted Yorkshirewoman - Ms Manzoor was born in Pakistan and came to Yorkshire when she was four - she has a firm idea of where the office should be looking for staff.

'I know they are looking at setting up satellite offices and I would encourage them to look at the possibility of setting up an office in the north.'

On the wider issue of the continuing viability of self-regulation for the legal profession, Ms Manzoor's mind is wide open.

She maintains that the idea of her predecessor, Ann Abraham, that there should be a single regulatory body for the legal professions, has its appeal.

Ms Manzoor adds: 'There are real issues regarding the existing regulatory framework.

In the first instance, it looks very complex to me.

'There is room to look at what self-regulation means currently and at what it might mean in the future.

And you have to take the professional bodies with you.

But it is too early for me to make a full comment.

In another three or four months, I should have a considered view to give.'

Senior figures in both Whitehall and Chancery Lane will be keenly listening to Ms Manzoor when that time comes.

Creating access

COMPLAINTS HANDLING

SIR STEPHEN LANDER MAKES THE CASE FOR A CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY OSS TO MAKE IT MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR THE PUBLIC, REPORTS JONATHAN AMES

Sir Stephen Lander is another relative new kid on the block for the solicitors' profession.

Last November, he took up the position as the Law Society's independent commissioner - which involves taking an advisory and analytical role in relation to consumer redress and complaints handling.

Anyone who thought that Sir Stephen's previous post as director-general of MI5, the UK's domestic security service, would have conditioned him against speaking frankly would be badly mistaken.

The commissioner already has formed fairly strong views and has shown an inclination to voice them, as the Law Society Council discovered at the beginning of last month when Sir Stephen delivered his 'first impressions' of the Society's regulatory function.

His main concern is two-fold: the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) is not visible enough to the general public, and the jargon and historic structure of complaints handling is too confusing for the layperson.

'It isn't terribly easy to find the OSS if you don't know that it's there,' maintains Sir Stephen.

'And what does OSS mean? If you're not a solicitor then you wouldn't know that it was to do with complaints handling.

On the Web site, you've got to burrow round to find the word 'complaint'.

The OSS has got to be more visible and accessible.

Achieving that is not rocket science - look at how some of the other regulatory bodies do it.

They have budgets for advertising.'

Sir Stephen postulates that the reluctance to promote a consumer redress scheme is a historical legacy, rooted in the Society's long-standing defensive attitude towards complaints and trying not to be overwhelmed by them.

Indeed, in Sir Stephen's view, that attitude was accentuated by the Lord Chancellor's Department's imposed targets, 'which punished them [the OSS] for having lots of complaints as opposed to punishing them in relation to what they did with those complaints'.

On the jargon and structure, Sir Stephen refers back to his initial report to the council.

'What OSS case handlers do now is characterise complaints into one of two jurisdictions - service and conduct.

Those are words that mean something inside the organisation, and a little bit outside the organisation, but not the same things.

'What complainants want is to engage with somebody who sees the problem from their point of view.

If you have that over-arching approach to the handling of complaints, you are then more customer focused and customer orientated.

And setting up the customer assistance scheme has shown that the OSS recognises that it needs to have a more customer-orientated approach.

'Currently, the OSS has all these rules, and because it [complaints handling] is complicated and no two cases are exactly alike, the rules are a safety net.

But they need to get out in front of the rules and become more engaged with the people.

Some of the criticism by the ombudsman of the OSS is that it hasn't understood the whole complaint.'

Sir Stephen is adamant about one aspect of the OSS operation.

He is not yet calling for more money to be spent on it.

'There isn't prima facie evidence that the OSS isn't spending enough money,' he says.

'There are some questions about how they spend money and they are currently underspending because they are finding it difficult to recruit.' He points out that the 13 million annual spend on the OSS works out to be about 20% of the Society's budget.

'But then what it does is a sizeable activity.

So it doesn't feel to me to be an inherently improbable figure.'

With such large amounts of resources already allocated to the OSS, Sir Stephen acknowledges that accurately measuring the success of its operation is crucial.

'It would be helpful to have some articulation of outcomes as opposed to inputs and speed,' he says.

'This is partly for educational purposes because all solicitors think they are victimised by the OSS, and the public all think that the OSS is biased in favour of solicitors.

But if every year you published the outcomes - for example, in this percentage of complaints the complainant went away, this percentage was conciliated, this was upheld, this was rejected - you would demonstrate something about the life of this activity.

It would also focus the Society on the thing that is important - resolving complaints, not completing files.'

On the profession's attitude to complaints, Sir Stephen is diplomatic in his view of how well solicitors are adhering to the obligations under Society practice rule 15.

That rule requires law firms to have in-house complaints procedures in place.

But recent statistics have shown that more than 60% have no such function.

'It is slightly odd that if you've had a rule for the last ten years, and it has been sharpened up in the recent past, that the degree of compliance is modest,' he comments, while pointing out that the Society is in the process of rewriting the rules to make them simpler and more clear.

Sir Stephen expects to make his first formal report to the Society's council soon after Easter.

He has already recommended to the council that five staff be recruited for his office.

Does that mean he sees himself in for the long haul? 'It remains to be seen how it works - how the Law Society responds to formal recommendations which I shall make.

For the sake of argument, if I were to make half a dozen recommendations and the Law Society said thanks very much and did nothing, then that might call into question the utility of the role.'