Legal Services Act 'designed' to cause tensions, Edmonds suggests

The Legal Services Act 'inevitably' leads to some tensions between the LSB and approved regulators, Dave Edmonds, chairman of the umbrella regulator, has said.

'Indeed, it could be argued that it is designed to do so,' he said. 'Self-regulatory bodies are close to their own segment of the market and have a degree of knowledge about its operation that it would be needless for us to duplicate.

'But equally, parliament has given us a role to bring challenge from the perspective of the entire market and the customer and competitor, as well as from best regulatory practice elsewhere.

'That will inevitably be uncomfortable on occasion,' Edmonds said. 'The common challenge for the LSB and regulators is to make that tension as creative a process as possible.'

Edmonds was commenting in a letter to Helen Grant, the new justice minister, in response to the MoJ's triennial review of the LSB, published in July.

He called for an 'open debate' on the cost of regulation and the 'small component of the total costs that practitioners have to bear' in funding the LSB.

Earlier this year Michael Todd QC, chairman of the Bar Council, called for the LSB's role to be confined and described it as 'a relatively large organisation which has largely outlived its original purpose, and that is plainly seeking to find an additional role for itself.'

Todd argued that in particular the LSB should not intervene further in regulatory matters, and education and training.

LSB officials acknowledged in the response that these areas had caused the most 'confusion and consternation'.

They argued that research into the legal services market by the LSB had been 'widely welcomed by stakeholders outside the professions, both nationally and internationally, and had been a crucial input into our own practice.'

They said the LSB's role had been 'crucial in building momentum' on diversity because 'in the absence of a body with the power to force this onto the regulatory agenda, no progress was made, with the issue being seen as one for professional bodies or minority of enlightened firms'.

On QASA officials said the board's intervention had been 'crucial in the maintenance of any momentum behind delivery of the project', which they described as an 'object demonstration' of the difficulties faced by frontline regulators in trying to co-operate without 'forceful facilitation'.

The LSB concluded by saying that it was for regulators to 'devise, develop and implement' the reforms required to guarantee the profession's 'undeniable reputation for excellence'.

'The role of the LSB is to make sure that they do and that they do so in a way that meets the will of parliament.

'We take this active responsibility seriously. In many respects, it is an odd thing that in doing so we face fierce criticism.'