Good in parts: Faculty views on complaints consultation

Disagreement with some of the proposals put forward by the Scottish Government in its consultation on amendments to legal complaints procedures has been voiced by the Faculty of Advocates in its reponse.

The consultation follows work by the Law Society of Scotland with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to try and reduce the complexity of the complaints procedure ahead of wider reaching legislation. It put forward a set of "packages" dealing with different aspects of the process.

In its response, Faculty strongly agrees with changes which seek to improve transparency on complaints. It comments: "The Faculty considers that carefully controlled publication subject to the safeguards outlined does have a legitimate role to play in the public interest, and this accords with the Faculty’s own rules about publication of its disciplinary decisions."

It also agrees with changes at the stage of concluding a complaint that would ensure a case is closed in reasonable time, stating: "we certainly support in principle removal of any financial incentive to prolong resolution of complaints".

However, Faculty expresses strong disagreement with proposals to introduce hybrid issue complaints and triaging. The former proposal would be "onerous on the practitioner, confusing for the public, and may lead to the possibility of conflicting decisions by the SLCC and the professional body". The Faculty also strongly disagrees with proposals to change existing practices for the identification of valid complaints and for completing and reporting on investigations. 

Faculty also mostly disagrees with proposed changes to the rules on fee rebates, which are designed to allow a complainer to recover both compensation and a refund of fees. On this issue, it responds: "We are uncertain about the need to drive public confidence in the regulatory system by providing this benefit. However, we note the observation that these cases can attract negative public comments, and it may be that the proposal can be justified because of the types of circumstance in which the problem tends to arise."

Click here to read the full response.