SLCC welcomes Society commitment to cut complaint times
Proposed actions by the Law Society of Scotland to reduce the time taken in investigating conduct complaints have been welcomed by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.
The Society's plans follow a report by the SLCC in March under its oversight powers, which found that the majority of complaints investigations take longer than the Law Society’s published average timescale of 12 months to complete. It concluded that delays in investigations raised public protection issues associated with solicitors continuing to practice whilst under investigation, and might lead complainers to conclude that their complaint is not being taken seriously, potentially impacting public confidence in the complaints process.
The SLCC made three statutory recommendations for improvement: setting a realistic and achievable target timescale for the completion of conduct investigations, creating a plan of action to achieve the target timescale, and improving the transparency of communications with parties on timescales.
In response, the Society confirmed its commitment to reduce the time taken to report on complaints and set out an action plan for improvement, which includes increased resourcing for regulation and improvements to communication with parties about expected timescales.
In an update report published today, the SLCC welcomes the Society’s response and commits to scrutinising its plans and the progress made against them as part of an annual cycle of assurance.
It further notes that while it would be desirable that the current Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill provides for improvements in relation to conduct complaints, these are not included in the bill as drafted and "there is a risk that meaningful amendments may not be achieved". Making improvements meantime will mean that "Whatever the outcome of the bill this will leave the [Society], the public and profession, in a stronger position moving forward."
Sarah Hamer, Oversight and Assurance manager commented: "We are grateful for the Law Society’s constructive engagement with this work and its commitment to reducing the time taken to investigate conduct complaints.
"We will continue to monitor progress against the Law Society’s plans, and we look forward to seeing progress made in both reducing conduct complaint handling times and better managing parties’ expectations throughout the complaints process.
"Through our oversight of the professional bodies’ conduct complaints processes we aim to drive improvement and ultimately to promote public confidence in the regulation of legal services."