LSB welcomes the release of the Social Mobility Toolkit

02 March 2012

The Legal Services Board (LSB) today welcomes the publication of the Social Mobility Toolkit, a resource aimed at creating a step-change in social mobility across the professions. The proposal for the publication emerged from an LSB- chaired group bringing representatives from the professions together to discuss the implications of the Milburn Report on Fair Access to the Professions for regulators and professional bodies as they seek to improve access for non-traditional candidates, as well as to ensure they become better represented at higher levels of industry.

The LSB has as one of its regulatory objectives, shared with the approved regulators, the task of ‘encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession’. As part of work in this area, the Board has created new transparency duties at firm and chambers level to monitor and publish diversity figures. This initiative is designed to create a commercial incentive to take action to widen access and support progression in the legal workforce. In December 2011 the LSB made public the set of criteria it will use to assess approved regulators’ compliance with the new duties.

LSB Chief Executive Chris Kenny said:

“We welcome this release from Professions for Good. The Board has placed a real emphasis on improving diversity in the legal profession through our new transparency duties. These, notably, include requirements for data collection relating to socio-economic background, as well as the traditional diversity strands. We welcome the work of Professions for Good in supporting other professions to take action”.