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I don't see what all the rejoicing is about; nothing very much has changed in the light of the new LAA approach.
This was never about "ghost duty solicitors", but always about trying to get rid of perfectly competent and duty-performing solicitors who were not working full time, as well as making things as difficult as possible for smaller organisations doing crime lower work on a smaller scale.
If the LAA want to get rid of "ghosts", all they have to do is check that persons whose names are on a rota actually personally do their duties, and , if not , remove them. ( We have all heard the stories of solicitors selling their slots to a firm for a retainer and then not doing their allocated duties themselves/ dead , retired or absent solicitors whose names were kept on the rota by unscrupulous firms. None of those things, if they were happening, should ever have been allowed, and should have been the subject of immediate investigation and action by the LAA, which they were not.)
What business is it of the LAA to prescribe how many hours a week a particular solicitor is doing, and how does enforcing a 14 hour rule in any way contribute to the quality of the service given to clients?
The test should be: is the solicitor personally covering his or her duty slots, however many or few hours of work that generates.
The issue of that solicitor's competence is another matter, to be checked in other ways, and has nothing much to do with how many hours a week are being worked.