Home > News and publications > LSB News > 25 March 2015
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful and reliable. Our cookies page explains what they are, which ones we use, and how you can manage or remove them. Don't show this message again.

 

LSB Logo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, 25 March 2015

 

Making a difference on diversity: regulators need to do more with their data

Society is best served by a legal sector with a diverse workforce that can respond to the varied needs of a wide range of clients and consumers.

In pursuit of this goal, the Legal Services Board (LSB) publishes today its second report reviewing the legal regulators’ progress against our diversity data collection and transparency guidance issued in 2011[1].

The report points to the positive progress made by the regulators, identifies where more could be done, and sets out a number of areas where improvements need to be made and actions need to be taken chief amongst which is their need to display greater statistical sophistication in the collection, analysis and presentation of data to ensure it can have a real impact.

Legal Services Board Chairman, Sir Michael Pitt, said:

"It is important that we encourage the development of a diverse and socially mobile legal sector that reflects the society it serves.

Regulators are to be commended for developing a robust evidence base on diversity.

However their use of this data has not had the level of impact hoped for on the many issues identified by the LSB’s research in this area and they need to reconsider their approach to this."

[1] Increasing diversity and social mobility in the legal workforce: transparency and evidence. July 2011.

ENDS

 

For further information, please contact LSB Communications Manager Vincent McGovern or by calling 020 7271 0068.

Notes for editors:

  1. The report can be found here.

  2. Background information on this research can be found here.

  3. A roundtable event was held by the Legal Services Board (LSB) on Monday 23 March where a number of guest speakers talked to the regulators about what more they could be doing in their work in this area.

  4. The Legal Services Act 2007 (the Act) created the LSB as a new regulator with responsibility for overseeing the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. The new regulatory regime became active on 1 January 2010.

  5. The LSB oversees nine approved regulators, which in turn regulate individual legal practitioners. The approved regulators, designated under Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the Act, are the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Master of the Faculties, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the Association of Costs Lawyers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

    In addition, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants are listed as approved regulators in relation only to reserved probate activities.

  6. As at 1 April 2014, the legal profession comprised 138,243 solicitors, 326 alternative business structures, 15,279 barristers, 7,927 chartered legal executives and 5,404 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The sector was valued at £29.2 billion in 2013 (total turnover).