LSB continues to push regulatory bodies to enhance transparency, improve performance and focus on consumers

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has published its annual report on the performance of the eight legal services regulatory bodies.

Each organisation regulates different types of lawyers and carries out its responsibilities differently. However, they have the same obligations under the Legal Services Act 2007 and are expected to demonstrate how they put the regulatory objectives at the heart of their work.

The bodies are assessed against the same 27 outcomes across five standards: Regulatory Approach, Authorisation, Supervision, Enforcement, and Well-led: governance and leadership.

This year, CILEx Regulation, the Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB), and the Solicitors Regulation Authority have met all the outcomes required across all the standards. The LSB’s report notes the significant performance improvement from CLSB and how it has turned around its regulatory approach since 2019.

However, across the other regulatory bodies, the LSB has identified more not met outcomes under the Regulatory Approach and Well-led standards than last year.

The LSB published performance reviews of the Bar Standards Board and the Faculty Office against the Well-led standard in July 2021 and September 2021, respectively. The oversight regulator expects to see significant improvement next year as the regulatory bodies implement their action plans based on the LSB’s findings.

The LSB also expects the other regulators to take account of the findings of both reviews, particularly points raised about transparency, which will be an area of focus in 2022. The LSB has concerns about whether and how regulatory bodies gather evidence from stakeholders, use it in their decision-making processes and demonstrate this transparently either in their Board papers or in their applications for changes to their regulatory arrangements.

The oversight regulator has emphasised the need for regulatory bodies to base decisions on evidence, understand the impact on their consumers, lawyers, and other stakeholders, and do so in a way that takes account of the regulatory objectives and is transparent so that how they reach their decisions can be clearly understood. This will increase accountability.

Chris Nichols, Director, Policy and Regulation at Legal Services Board, said:

“Through our regulatory performance framework we seek to ensure that regulatory bodies are well-led and delivering good quality regulation for the public. Our latest annual assessment shows that some regulators are doing this more effectively than others.

“The Costs Lawyer Standards Board has turned around its performance over the last two years, demonstrating that it is possible to perform well with limited resources, through innovative and collaborative approaches. We have also identified a number of regulators who need to demonstrate more transparently how their work is impacting on the regulatory objectives and need to improve accountability through better consultation and engagement.

“Over the coming year, we will continue to work with regulatory bodies to improve performance and create a legal services market that meets society’s needs and delivers fairer outcomes, stronger confidence, and better services.”

Kindly shared by Legal Services Board (LSB)