The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is consulting on its draft 2025/26 Business Plan and Budget for the Legal Ombudsman (LeO). The consultation will run for six weeks from 31 October 2024 until 12pm on 13 December 2024.
2025/26 is the second year of the OLC’s 2024-27 strategy. The consultation sets out how:
Having transformed its service, LeO is consistently resolving 25% more complaints than in the past, including half through early resolution. In 2025/26 it expects to resolve 8,800 complaints.
Persistently high numbers of people who’ve relied on legal services at critical times in their lives are turning to LeO, with demand having never returned to pre-pandemic levels. In 2025/26 LeO expects to receive 9,700 new complaints, and take on 7,500 for early resolution or investigation.
The marked feature of LeO’s data is that, over several years, standards of service and complaints handling haven’t improved in legal services – and in some areas, have worsened.
In the context of high demand, the OLC is aiming to balance investing in resource to reduce the queue of people waiting; to help the legal sector prevent demand and consumer detriment at source; and to ensure LeO is harnessing the power of technology to enhance its service and generate savings and efficiencies. The proposed budget for LeO is £19.8 million.
The OLC intends to progress toward enhancing the transparency of LeO Ombudsman decisions in the life of the 2024-27 strategy – and the likely costs and impacts of this.
The OLC is proposing to increase the case fee to £800, recognising the role of this income in both offsetting the levy and in incentivising better complaints handling through underlining the “polluter pays” principle.
The consultation business plan and budget, including an introduction from the OLC Chair and Chief Ombudsman, are available on LeO’s website.
