Our outreach and oversight work

The statement sets out the SLCC’s intention to work collaboratively and constructively with others in the sector to ensure public confidence in the complaints and redress system.

That statement guided our approach in a number of areas of work over the past year, including our report on the professional indemnity arrangements made by the Law Society of Scotland, where we made recommendations for how they could be enhanced. We will follow up this work over the next five years, publishing an annual update report each November.

We also commenced work looking at the professional bodies’ timescales and processes for dealing with the conduct investigations we remit to them, and we will be publishing findings and any recommendations in the coming year.

This approach will continue to guide our work in these areas, and as we take on additional oversight responsibilities in relation to complaints in the new Alternative Business Structures regime. This includes taking on an entirely new type of complaint – complaints about Approved Regulators.

As part of our engagement with the wider profession, we held two practitioner-led roundtable sessions, hosting representatives from firms of differing size, practice speciality and geographic locations. These were incredibly helpful in shaping our understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing firms.

We also took part in a number of conferences and events on the common causes of complaints and how to deal effectively with them.

We spoke directly to firms on issues relating to risk management and complaint handling, and delivered tailored, bespoke sessions with firms in line with their requested topics.

We’ve refreshed our quarterly newsletter for the profession and share key messages via social media. This year this included a specific focus on early resolution. We also updated our statutory guidance on complaint handling, and made it much more accessible on a redesigned ‘for lawyers’ section of our website.