Office for Legal Complaints publishes 2023/24 Annual Report and Accounts

The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) has today (23 July 2024) published its 2023/24 Annual Report and Accounts.

The report highlights how the Legal Ombudsman – which resolves complaints about legal services in England and Wales – delivered its service in the year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. It also explains how the OLC ensured it provided value for money for both the public and the legal profession.

In 2023/24, the Legal Ombudsman:

• Handled 125,446 contacts, providing support and signposting to consumers and legal service providers.
  
  
• Received 9,671 new complaints from consumers unhappy with the legal service they had received.
  
  
• Resolved 7,918 complaints – 46% within 90 days, with more than half of resolved through early resolution in an average of 49 days.
  
  
• Found evidence of poor service in 69.4% of complaints, and poor complaints handling in 45.9%.
  
  
• Used feedback and engagement to help prevent future complaints, with 9 in 10 legal providers giving positive feedback about LeO’s resources and training.
  
  
• Reduced the number of people waiting for an investigation by a further 21.2%.
  
  
• Was a diverse, inclusive and engaging place to work, with high proportions of employees from ethnic minority backgrounds, lower socio-economic backgrounds, and connected with its purpose.
  
  
• Managed resources and risks effectively, running its service to the agreed budget and receiving an overall substantial audit rating.

OLC Chair Elisabeth Davies said:

“At the end of 2023/24, users and providers of legal services relying on LeO’s help are having a substantially better experience.

The credit for this goes, as ever, to LeO’s people, who can be rightly proud of the unstinting customer focus, determination and flexibility they’ve shown in making and sustaining this step-change.

They’ve done so in a year that has been far from straightforward. Despite such clear progress, waiting times for people whose complaints need investigating are higher than acceptable. The resourcing challenges that have contributed to this reflect, in large part, constraints on what LeO can offer its people. Nonetheless, while looking for longer-term solutions, the OLC has seen the tangible impact of LeO’s strategy for supporting and engaging its people, promoting diversity, inclusion and wellbeing.

The OLC Board has continued to actively challenge and seek assurance on LeO’s plans – always with a view to balancing confidence with realism.

This annual report once again shows a clear improvement trajectory. But words and numbers on a page can’t tell the full story. More than anything, LeO’s journey has been one of growing confidence – something that’s felt and seen.

Our new strategy represents the next part of the confidence story. There’s so much to be proud of in this annual report, and so much to be excited about in the future.”  

Chief Ombudsman Paul McFadden said:

“While LeO tackled the immediate challenges 2023/24 presented, it was a year very much focused on the future.

In developing a new strategy, we heard clear support for a greater role for LeO in helping the legal sector prevent complaints – rather than just resolving them once they’ve arisen.

The need for this rebalancing is highlighted by level of demand we saw in 2023/24 – 9,700 new complaints – together with how often we found evidence of poor service and poor complaints handling.

Despite the headwinds we faced in managing demand and resourcing, we made improvements to people’s experience of using LeO. We did so on a budget that, at the time it was set, represented a cut in real terms. 
We resolved the number of complaints we’d aimed to – around 8,000 – and reduced the number of people waiting for an investigation by 21%. 

We resolved 46% of complaints within 90 days – the gold standard for alternative dispute resolution schemes – compared to just 11% in 2021/22.

We showed our commitment to value: using early resolution wherever possible, expanding automation, and reviewing our processes to ensure they’re efficient. At the same time, we strengthened our framework for ensuring the quality of what we do. 

Thanks to the hard work of everyone at LeO, we can look back on how far we’ve come – and forward with a real sense of ambition.”

Notes

·       The Legal Ombudsman scheme (LeO) was established by the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) under the terms of the Legal Services Act 2007 (the Act). The Act also established the Legal Services Board (LSB) to oversee the regulation of the legal profession in England and Wales. Both the OLC and the LSB are arm’s-length bodies of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). LeO’s work supports and aligns with the regulatory objectives.

·       LeO resolves complaints about legal services that legal providers haven’t resolved to customers’ satisfaction – as quickly and informally as possible. LeO covers the majority of legal services provided in England and Wales. The rules and limits about what complaints LeO can help with are set out on its website.

·       The second vital part of LeO’s work is sharing learning and insight from the complaints it sees. This promotes better complaint handling, prevents future complaints and helps drive higher standards in legal services.

·       From 2021/22 LeO has rebalanced its service toward the early resolution of complaints wherever this is appropriate, helping to reduce waiting times. Having reached the end of its 2020-23 strategy, for 2023/24 the OLC developed a tightly-focused interim strategy, refocusing its strategic objectives for a final year.

·       The OLC has now consulted on and published a new strategy for LeO, which will run to 31 March 2027. It has also consulted on and published its Business Plan and Budget for 2024/25. The OLC’s past and current strategies and business plans for LeO are published in full on LeO’s website.