News

The SLCC has published two new guides, aimed at helping reduce complaints from criminal law cases.

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission staff have raised £3,728 for the Beatson Cancer Charity. The Beatson Cancer Charity supports the treatment, care and wellbeing cancer patients and their families. As well as providing funding towards enhanced medical equipment, specialist staff and research, the charity provides complementary therapies for patients and their families.

The SLCC has welcomed the Court of Session ruling upholding the approach the Commission had taken to deal with complaints formerly categorised as ‘hybrid’.

We have only received the court’s decision this morning, and have not had time to consider it fully. We had always believed that the action we had taken, on the basis of our legal advice, was in the best interests of those complainers and practitioners currently within our process. Having said that, the SLCC’s Board will be meeting early next week to discuss the Judgment in detail and consider whether this will have an impact for current or future complaints. We will proved further comment after that meeting.

To celebrate International Family Day the SLCC has today published an updated version of its Family Law consumer guide. The guide, which was first published in 2015, is aimed at helping consumers be aware of the common problems which give rise to complaints and how to avoid these.

The SLCC has welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs of a review of how best to reform and modernise the statutory framework for the regulation of legal services and complaints handling in Scotland.

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has approved a 12.5% increase in the annual levy Scottish solicitors pay to fund the system which deals with complaints against them. The rise, approved last week by the SLCC’s Board, follows a significant growth in the numbers of complaints about lawyers and costs coming from recent court rulings and the ongoing uncertainty they have caused.

"We are obviously disappointed at the stance taken by the Law Society of Scotland. The underlying reason for the proposed levy increase is a 12% rise in complaints against lawyers over the past year, many of which are complex cases that take significant resources to resolve. After five years of SLCC discounting fees by using reserves we now have no choice but to increase it in order to continue serving the public properly."

The SLCC welcomes the independent review of legal aid announced by the Scottish Government.

The SLCC has welcomed the Scottish Government’s Draft Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Bill, and made a number of comments to promote further discussion.

Scotland’s independent body for complaints about lawyers has called on members of the public and legal professionals to work with it on shaping how legal disputes are handled. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) today launched a consultation on its Operating Plan and budget for 2017/18 – this follows the launch last year of its strategy which sets out the priorities of the Commission up to June 2020.

Four new SLCC board member appointments have been announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Michael Matheson. The appointments, of two lawyer members and two non-lawyer members, are for five years and follow on from three previous appointments in 2016.