Complaints rise
19 Jul 05
Complaints against legal bodies rise but signs for the future are good
There has been a 27% jump in complaints about the way the Law Society of Scotland or Faculty of Advocates had handled a complaint about a legal practitioner.
According to the figures revealed in a report from Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman, complaints rose from 391 last year to 505 in 2004-2005.
Ombudsman Linda Costello Baker said that the rise was mostly down to the ‘very rapid increase in complaints about the way the Law Society had handled a complaint of endowment mis-selling.’
However she praised the Law Society’s improved complaint handling system. She said: "Towards the end of the year, we began to see the effects of the Law Society's much improved complaint handling system.
“The signs are good, but there have been problems along the way as all the stages in the process pick up the strain I have also noted a doubling of complaints to the Faculty of Advocates, and that it needs to pay more attention to assessing letters of complaint.”
The President of the Law Society of Scotland, Caroline Flanagan said that she is encouraged by the watchdog's recognition of the Society's much improved complaints handling system.
For the first time ever the Ombudsman's annual report makes no formal recommendations to the Society. The President pledged to continue to modernise its complaints system.
The Society has consistently met its target of handling 90 per cent of complaints within nine months since December 2004, in spite of an increase in the number of complaints.
The President also announced three significant changes over the next year including a new case management system, a new target of handling 75 per cent of complaints within six months to be introduced as soon as the new case management system is operational and the introduction of two more Client Relations Committees to allow more time to consider individual complaints.
Mrs Flanagan said: "It is important to remember that, while there is an upward trend in complaints, this still represents only around 0.2 per cent of the total number of items carried out by Scottish solicitors every year.
"In saying that, the Society believes that the overall rise reflects a greater confidence in and awareness of peoples rights to complain about professional services - something the Society has worked hard to encourage."
Mrs Flanagan also cautioned that most of the work covered by the report is about complaints handled under the Society's old system used until September 2003 and that the figures the Society had collated since then showed significant improvements in satisfaction ratings from the Ombudsman.
She said: “We believe the number of those cases where the Ombudsman was satisfied with our handling has increased to 64 per cent for cases started after that date.”