Manzoor warns Law Society on complaints handling

The Law Society is continuing to miss targets on complaints handling and narrowly escaped its second fine in one month last week.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) failed to meet five out of 13 targets on timeliness, quality and use of resources. They exceeded two and met six targets.

Legal Services Complaints Commissioner Zahida Manzoor, who fined the Law Society £275,000 for its inadequate 2008/09 plan in the first week of June, stresses that her decision to issue a warning rather than a fine this time “is not a cause for celebration”. Further effort is needed, especially on targets measuring “adherence to quality processes”, she says.

She adds, however: “I am pleased that jointly LCS and SRA met their overall target to close 67% of cases within three months (the LCS achieved 63% and the SRA 77%). Since I was appointed in 2004 and began setting targets, the number of older cases has reduced substantially and complaints are being handled more quickly. This is good news for the consumer.”

The SRA and LCS will be considered separately in future after the SRA performed notably better. It hit five of its six quality targets while the LCS achieved only three of its seven quality targets.