FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5 DECEMBER 2019
LSB launches consultation on its 2019/20 business plan
The Legal Services Board (LSB) launches today a consultation on its draft 2019/20 business plan – the second business plan of its 2018-21 strategic cycle.
The business plan includes three new five-year policy objectives which support the existing strategic objectives and will be key markers of our success in achieving them. They are:
- appropriate frameworks for ongoing assurance of professional competence
- enhancing public legal education, and
- technological innovation in legal services that carries public trust
Legal Services Board Chair, Dr Helen Phillips said:
“This is the second business plan of our latest strategic cycle and my first as Chair of the Legal Services Board.
The coming business plan year will mark the LSB’s tenth anniversary. I believe we can be proud of what has been achieved in this time, but there remain some challenging issues to address in securing our vision of legal services that everyone can access and trust.
I am keen to make sure that we tackle the big policy issues that affect us all. As an organisation the LSB is uniquely well placed to bring people together to share our experience and evidence, to ask the difficult questions, debate and discuss the issues, and identify the right solutions.
This draft business plan identifies the initial packages of work that we plan to deliver next year in relation to each of the policy objectives we have identified, alongside other key workstreams that will contribute towards our strategic objectives.
I look forward to hearing your views on our draft business plan, including whether we have identified the right issues to pursue as five-year policy objectives.”
ENDS
For further information and requests for interview, please contact the LSB’s Communications Manager, Vincent McGovern (020 7271 0068).
Notes for editors:
- Further information on this draft business plan 2019/20 consultation can be found here.
- The LSB’s proposed indicative budget for 2019/20 is £3.798m. This is the same budget as for the 2018/19 financial year and a reduction of almost 23% since 2010/11.
- The closing date for the consultation is Wednesday 27 February 2019.
- To facilitate interested parties’ responses to our consultation, a workshop has been arranged for the 15 January 10:30am. For further information or should you wish to attend please email: lsbevents@legalservicesboard.org.uk
- 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 ten approved regulators, which in turn regulate individual legal practitioners. The approved regulators, designated under Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the 2007 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 Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the Association of Costs Lawyers, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
In addition, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland is an approved regulator for probate activities only but does not currently authorise anyone to offer this service. - As at 1 April 2017, the legal profession in England and Wales comprised 148,690 solicitors, 15,281 barristers, 6,809 chartered legal executives and 5,958 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The UK legal sector turnover was £35 billion per annum (2017) which is up 25% in cash terms since 2012. For more information see here.