“Significant in-roads” made in legal complaints handling
The Legal Complaints Service (LCS), which receives about 13,000 complaints about solicitors per year, is now achieving more than 80% customer satisfaction compared to 52% in 2006, according to Ombudsman Zahida Manzoor’s 2009-2010 Annual Report and accounts.
Files closed within three months of receipt in 70% of complaints, within six months in 86% of complaints and nearly all files were closed within a year. This is an improvement on 2005 when more than 1,200 LCS complaints languished for more than a year.
The Law Society and LCS faced a series of fines between 2006 and 2008 for “inadequate” complaints handling procedures.
Manzoor singled out the Bar Standards Board for praise for its consistently high satisfaction rating and the introduction of several initiatives to improve performance, including a strategic review in 2006 and the promotion of diversity and equality throughout the Bar.
She noted the work of the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman (OLSO) in helping miners recover money wrongly deducted by some solicitors from compensation awards.
“These cases have raised some of the most important service and conduct issues in the history of legal service complaints handling,” she said.
OLSO has reduced expenditure from £1.9m in 2005-06 to £1.5m in 2009-10.
Manzoor says: “I am happy to report that significant in-roads have been made in all the professional bodies’ complaint handling processes enabling a speedier and more consistent approach to decision making.”
