The annual report of the Legal Services Board is rather like the Eurovision song contest: so excruciating it seems to come round every 12 weeks rather than 12 months.
It appeared again last week in what seemed like the fourth such report this year.
Just as all solicitors go straight to the SDT pages of the Gazette (yes, we’re not stupid you know), legal journalists head straight for the LSB page-count. This year the super-regulator managed 68 pages, four up on 2013. For a body that costs nearly £4.27m (paying a median salary of more than £50,000 a year), it’s surely money well spent.
Of course the board is in the curious position of having to regulate itself to death. It must rail tirelessly against the costs of regulation, while at the same time itself spending the profession’s money.
Luckily, the Legal Services Act gives it plenty of scope. One of the three ‘highlights’ of the LSB’s year was ‘developing our radical blueprint for regulatory reform’ in response to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on regulation.
Given that the government ruled out any reform of regulation – not least the LSB’s ambitious wishlist – Obiter shudders to think what the lowest points of the year might have been.
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