The Legal Services Board (LSB) has launched a consultation on its business plan and budget for 2025/26. Among its proposals, the oversight regulator has identified professional ethics and consumer protections as future priorities.
The LSB wants to change the culture of legal services to support and empower professional ethical decision-making across the sector. It sees this change as crucial to upholding public confidence and trust in the profession.
The LSB also wants to explore how recent market developments increase the risk of harm to consumers. This will include examining the risks posed to consumers from large firm failures, the injection of third-party litigation funding into certain areas of the market, and poor practice in areas such as bulk litigation claims.
Craig Westwood, Chief Executive of the LSB, said:
“The LSB is committed to reshaping legal services to meet the evolving needs of consumers and providers, and has proposed a detailed business plan for 2025/26 to support this. As part of this, professional ethics and consumer protections will be two priority areas for our continuing work, responding to recent high-profile failings and ongoing changes in the legal services market respectively.
“We want to make sure that regulators and the regulatory framework foster innovation, maintain high standards and promote public confidence in legal services across England and Wales.
“Your feedback will be crucial in helping us refine our approach and ensure that our strategic priorities are aligned with the needs of the sector and the public. Together, we can build a stronger, more accessible legal services market that serves everyone fairly and effectively.”
The consultation also covers:
- The LSB’s plan to continue to strengthen its direct oversight of the frontline legal services regulators, to ensure they meet the expected level of performance across the regulatory performance standards.
- Alongside ethics and consumer protections, the LSB is seeking to develop proposals to improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the legal sector, support access to justice, and ensure that regulators’ approaches to disciplinary and enforcement build public confidence.
- The LSB’s proposed annual budget of £6.028m for 2025/26, which is a 14% increase from the previous year and represents an additional £3.84 to each authorised person’s practising fee. The consultation sets out the key pressures driving this proposed increase, including one-off costs to enable an office move required in the forthcoming year and the creation of a contingency budget to support demands which arise in-year.
The LSB will be hosting an online consultation event on 15 January 2025 to discuss the draft business plan and budget in more detail. Book your place here.
The consultation will close at 5pm on 3 February 2025 and is available on the LSB’s website.
