By John Hyde2021-03-11T15:31:00+00:00
The Legal Ombudsman is set to scale back plans for a 19% budget increase after admitting it was ‘asking for a lot’.
The Office for Legal Complaints, which oversees the complaints body, had wanted to increase spending to £15.26m for 2021/22 to deal with a backlog of thousands of unopened cases. But OLC chair Elisabeth Davies admitted this week that following widespread opposition from lawyer representative groups that the business plan and budget will be revised.
The new budget forecast has not been revealed, but has been agreed by the OLC board and will be considered by the Legal Services Board when it meets later this month.
2021-01-08T16:16:00+00:00
Super-model Linda Evangelista once suggested she wouldn’t wake up for any less than £10,000. So it’s unlikely she would be interested in helping to turn around the ailing Legal Ombudsman service for just double that.
The Office for Legal Complaints is seeking a new service complaints adjudicator to provide an independent and impartial review of complaints about its service at the final stage of the complaints process.
Given the ombudsman has had to beg for a £2.5m hike in its budget and recently described an ‘unsustainable’ 5,000 people soon waiting for an investigation into their issue with their lawyer, it’s likely the service might be fielding a few complaints in the coming months.
CMA publishes review of progress in legal services sector
The CMA’s assessment of changes in the legal services sector since its market study has found some positive developments but concludes more progress is needed.
From:
17 December 2020
The CMA made recommendations to legal services regulators to improve transparency by legal firms on price, service and quality to help customers navigate the sector more easily and get value for money. It also recommended that the Government consider whether those using unauthorised providers need stronger protections and that the regulatory framework be reviewed for the longer term.
Transparency
There are clear signs of progress. For example, many more legal firms are now providing information on price, service, redress and regulatory status to help consumers shop around. However, while the evidence suggests that some customers are taking advantage of the changes, there is still work to do as there only appears to have been a limited