The weekly clap for carers has now come to an end, but perhaps it is time to resurrect the regular gesture in tribute to the unsung heroes of the coronavirus pandemic. We refer, of course, to oversight legal regulators.

With the kind of bureaucratic grandiloquence that has become its trade mark, the Legal Services Board last week published its annual report, outlining exactly what each lawyer is getting for their £21.27 annual levy.

The most pressing issue is, of course, Covid-19, and it will reassure those with concerns about the virus that the LSB is right on top of things. In its response to the global pandemic, the organisation says it has ensured it ‘did not create any regulatory burdens’, which is jolly good of it. We believe this is shorthand for ‘kept out of the way for a while’.

But the action plan does not end with simply laying off the red tape. As a result of last month’s board meeting, the LSB is now ‘communicating to stakeholders the need to consider recovery from a public interest perspective’ and ‘considering actions in relation to slowed operations within our purview as a result of the pandemic’.

If that doesn’t deserve a clap then we don’t know what does.

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