Heartening news of a 29% productivity leap from our beloved consumer watchdog. The 2013 annual report of the Legal Services Consumer Panel runs to 36 electronic pages, up from 28 last year.

That’s not all. Inside, Obiter reads that since 2011-12 the panel has ‘almost doubled the speeches and presentations we made and the number of meetings we held with our stakeholders’.

With some effect, too. Apparently five legal services comparison websites have ‘publically self-certified’ that they will adhere to standards drawn up by the panel. And let’s not forget the panel’s hard-hitting campaign for the regulation of will-writing and estate administration.

The annual report concedes that this got nowhere with the lord chancellor – but la lutte continue.

‘This is not about quick wins,’ panel chair Elisabeth Davies writes with incontestable accuracy in the foreword.