Performance Of The Office For The Supervision Of Solicitors

EDM number 218 in 2000-01, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 17/01/2001.

That this House notes the considerable dissatisfaction with the handling of complaints against solicitors by the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors which is not independent and lacks effective competence and real concern for consumer interests; further notes that endless assurances and changes have not produced demonstrable improvements apart from an unverifiable claim that the backlog of complaints is down to 13,000 (including unsatisfactorily handled complaints); observes that, yet again, the OSS has failed to meet the targets set by the Lord Chancellor, who assured the Home Affairs Committee that he would require much better performance in respect of independence, quality, turnaround time and effectiveness in handling complaints; notes that despite this failure, the OSS seeks more time and weaker targets while the Legal Services Ombudsman, himself an agent of the profession, not the public, is unwilling and unable to effectively control or check their failures; and, in view of this comprehensive failure, now calls on the Lord Chancellor to accept that professional self-regulation, always inadequate and favouring vested interests, has comprehensively failed, and should now be replaced with a competent and independent regulatory body capable of dealing with complaints against both solicitors and the Bar, of ensuring proper professional legal service to consumers and providing effective protection rather than compelling the victims of professional failures to embark on a flawed and risky search for redress by suing professionals in costly court actions.

This motion has been signed by a total of 53 MPs.