Bar Standards Board must improve before it regulates firms, LSB says

The Bar Standards Board must improve before it regulates firms, including ABSs, the LSB warned this morning.

The umbrella regulator said the BSB had painted an "overly optimistic picture about the progress it has made in moving towards outcomes-focused regulation", especially given its lack of evidence on regulatory risks and consumer needs.

"This evidence must form the basis for an effective risk-based regulatory regime. Supervision is currently more reactive than proactive and enforcement has been hampered by the poor performance of the Council of the Inns of Court.

"In terms of capacity and capability, the LSB considers that the BSB's forward work programme is very challenging and there are real risks about whether it is able to deliver all of the things it has proposed in the timescale it has set.

"A significant number of improvements are reliant on a successful IT upgrade, with the risks that implies. More fundamentally perhaps, many will represent a culture change for the BSB and others."

The LSB was responding to a self-assessment by the BSB, the last regulator to report back on its progress. The smaller regulators submitted their self-assessments at the end of last year but the SRA and BSB both applied for extensions.

The umbrella regulator said the BSB "had ambitions" to expand the reserved activities barristers were allowed to provide and regulate firms, including ABSs. "We will expect the BSB to demonstrate significant progress in embedding the regulatory standards into their day to day operations when it submit its applications to expand the areas and businesses it is are able to regulate.

"The LSB will be monitoring the BSB's adherence to its action plan closely and will, where appropriate, take action for failure to keep to its plan without good reason."