The first chair of watchdog the Legal Services Consumer Panel has resigned after two years in the post.

Baroness Hayter (pictured) has decided to step down because of her commitments in the House of Lords, the Legal Services Board said in a statement.

LSB chairman David Edmonds said: ‘Much of the credit for the successes [of the panel] to date goes to Dianne Hayter, whose insight and determination to rest [its] work on hard evidence has underpinned its credibility.

‘Her work in launching and embedding the Consumer Panel has made a real difference to the thinking of the LSB and increasingly to that of the Legal Ombudsman and the other regulators.’

An interim chair will be appointed from among the existing panel membership, with a term running until the end of March 2013.

The announcement came as the panel published its first annual report.