FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, 26 March 2015
LSB launches new three year strategy
The Legal Services Board (LSB) today publishes an ambitious new Strategy for 2015-18. The Strategy describes how the LSB will hold to account the regulators for the different branches of the legal profession and encourage change in pursuit of a modern and effective legal services sector that works better for consumers, the public and practitioners.
Informed by consultation, the Strategy has three key themes:
- breaking down regulatory barriers to competition, growth and innovation
- enabling need for legal services to be met more effectively, and
- ensuring that the regulators and the Legal Ombudsman are operating effectively and that there is a shared understanding of the legal services market.
The Strategy recognises the vital role that legal services play in underpinning civil society, our economy and democracy. It also takes into account the key challenges facing the sector.
The LSB also publishes today its Business Plan 2015/16, which describes the detail of work planned for the year ahead.
Legal Services Board Chairman, Sir Michael Pitt,said:
"The legal services sector is going through a period of rapid change. Changing customer demands, greater use of technology, new business models, and public spending restraint present a mix of challenges and opportunities.
I want the LSB to be ambitious and provide leadership over the next three years as we face these changes. This strategy and accompanying business plan will ensure the LSB plays its full part in creating a better market for legal services.
I am keen that we deliver our strategy in a spirit of collaboration with the widest possible range of consumer, citizen and legal services bodies that can contribute constructively to our work.
We all have an interest in ensuring that the legal services sector rises to the challenges it is facing. By doing so it will better meet the needs of consumers and the public whilst maintaining standards."
ENDS
For further information, please contact LSB Communications Manager Vincent McGovern or by calling 020 7271 0068.
Notes for editors:
- The Strategy (2015-18) and the 2015/16 Business Plan can be found here.
- Information about the consultation that was run can be found here.
- Responses to the consultation can be found here.
- 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.
- 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. - 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).