‘Regulation that is independent of government is important in delivering confidence to consumers, providers, investors and society as a whole.’ So declares the Legal Services Board at the very summit of its website.
We agree. Yet the Gazette has had cause to be less confident about this ‘independence’ than the LSB. We recall how, some years ago, the SRA cooperated closely with government over its high-profile and ultimately fruitless investigation into human rights firm Leigh Day. This cooperation extended to lobbying the MoD to back reform of the disciplinary process, when claims against the same government department lay at the heart of the Leigh Day prosecution. Regular updates were given to the MoD about the progress of the probe – which cost the profession dear and culminated in the law firm’s exoneration.
Independent?
Last week solicitors heard that they will be stung by huge increases in compensation fund contributions arising largely from the spectacular implosion of Axiom Ince. Many are angry, but must wait for a proper account of why the profession is footing the bill for a £64m hole in the client account. The oversight regulator’s report on the SRA’s role in the lead-up to the collapse will not now be published until after the general election. Announcing the delay, the LSB said that, as a public body, it is bound by guidance not to compete with the election campaign for public attention.
This highly contestable assertion is not a good look. The LSB has in the past been cited as an example of creeping government control of the legal profession, with its independence called into question by the International Bar Association. It has not escaped the global bar’s notice that the LSB’s chair must be approved by the lord chancellor.
Gazette readers have been quick to question why an organisation that claims to be independent of government feels constrained to put elements of its work on hold during purdah. The board maintains that it will not be deterred ‘from pursuing any required action or matters arising from our review in the public interest’. Except that it has just been precisely so deterred – by booting its own report into the long grass for spurious reasons of constitutional propriety.
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