Chamber and committees

Scottish Government submission of 5 October 2021

PE1851/F - Justice for the public in the legal system

I refer to your correspondence dated 7 September 2021, which seeks an update on the position in respect of petition PE1851 by Melanie Collins and William Tait.

Legal Services Regulation Reform

I am pleased to inform you that a Scottish Government consultation was published on the 1st October 2021 in respect of Esther Roberton’s Report of the Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation in Scotland (the Roberton report).

The consultation will run for 12 weeks until 24 December 2021 and will seek views on options for change in the way legal services are regulated and how the legal complaints system operates. The options are intended to promote competition, innovation and the public and consumer interest in an efficient, effective and independent legal sector.

The options include three potential models of regulation, developed collaboratively with stakeholders representing the legal profession and the consumer interest. This will provide an opportunity to create a new statutory framework for a modern, forward-looking regulatory system for legal services in Scotland.

The consultation is available at: https://consult.gov.scot/justice/legal-services-regulation-reform-in-scotland/.

Legal complaints

The Scottish Government response to the Roberton report also set out that there is work ongoing to bring forward improvements to the legal complaints system under the existing legislative framework in the interim ahead of wider reform. A consultation seeking views on potential improvements to the system for legal complaints ran between December 2020 and February 2021.

Our response to that consultation on legal complaints advised that based on the responses received, the Scottish Government believes there is support to bring forward the proposals consulted on, albeit with consideration of further reforms in respect of the Roberton report.

We will seek to introduce secondary legislation early in this this parliamentary session to that effect, designed to bring about improvement to the legal complaints system in the interim ahead of wider reform.