The UK's Law Society has hit back at an interim report released last month by the Legal Services Ombudsman, Zahida Manzoor, which criticised the Law Society's Office for the Supervision of Solicitors (OSS) once again for its complaints handling performance.
Although she acknowledged that there had been some progress made since she was appointed separately to the post of Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, Ms Manzoor revealed that: "It saddens me to report that, as I had feared, the complaints handling performance of the OSS has continued to deteriorate."
She then went on to explain that the OSS had failed to meet all but one of its targets for complaints handling in 2003, having closed 45% of cases within three months (when the target was 65%), and failed to meet the ombudsman's satisfaction rating target of 75%; she revealed that she was only satisfied with the OSS's handling of complaints in 57% of cases.
In a letter responding to the ombudsman's report, Law Society chief executive, Janet Paraskeva condemned Ms Manzoor for using her interim report to give the impression that the OSS's performance has continued to deteriorate "when in fact the reverse is the case".
Ms Paraskeva went on to explain that although in the time frame cited by Ms Manzoor in her report (January 2002 to September 2003) the number of cases in the complaints system jumped from 4,434 to 8,545, in July and September of last year, the OSS closed more cases than it received. This trend continued into October and November.
The Legal Services Ombudsman dubbed the Law Society's stance "disingenuous", and argued that her observations on the OSS's performance were "grounded in fact and present a reasonable interpretation of those facts".
However, she added that, if the OSS manages to maintain its improved performance levels: "I will be pleased to acknowledge this achievement in my next annual report".
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