I know that we all say it, but it really does feel like this year has flown by. I can’t believe it’s time for mince pies and tinsel all over again.

But there is still a little time before we all completely give in to the festivities and we’ll be continuing with our work until Christmas Eve. Over the holiday period we are open for business as usual, apart from bank holidays, but with slightly reduced working hours. Details will be available on our website just before Christmas.

The last few months have been extremely busy for us. Not only have we published a discussion paper on Transparency and Reporting Impact, but we have also just launched our Strategy and Business Plan consultation for 2020-23.

I would really appreciate it if you have the time to share your thoughts on both of these.

In our strategy we set out both our journey over the last three years and where we want to be by 2023. By 2023 I want to be able to say to you that the Legal Ombudsman is consistently providing class leading customer service through the resolution of disputes, but also providing insightful feedback that supports access to justice through sharing and identifies opportunities to improve across the legal service sector.

You can find out more about the last three years in the consultation document. Underlying everything we have done over the last 18 months, and going into the next strategy is a focus on the customer journey through the Legal Ombudsman, whether you are a complainant or legal service provider. We have worked hard to remove queues within our process, so that, once a case is accepted for investigation, cases progress smoothly through with minimal wait times. However, many will be aware that we do have a wait at the beginning of the process. This has already reduced by half over the last year, but in the next year we will reduce it to a position which is in line with normal expectations. 

But the journey is not just about time, it is also about ensuring the quality of our work and our engagement with you throughout the process. Again, the work on this has already begun. A revised quality and feedback model has already been rolled out across our delivery teams. As we move forward the focus will be on using the learning from this to build tailored training and development for our staff, enhancing the overall experience and benefit for our customers and our employees.

We also want to do more to ensure that our investigations add value to the complaints process. This means challenging those cases where it is clear that we’re not going to improve an offer, which has been made through a firm’s complaints process or when we clearly can’t meet the expectations of the complainant. It is also about refining how we understand the core of the complaint, which increases the potential for finding a resolution.

The final area our strategy focuses on is sharing information about our service and the outcomes from complaints in order to support individual firms and the wider sector. We know from the events and guidance we already provide that many would like us to do much more in this area. We’re committed to increasing our resources to meet this need.

I’ve given you just a flavour of what is in our strategy. I look forward to hearing your views on what we have developed for the next three years. This will help us to build and develop a service, which meets the needs of both consumers and legal service providers alike.