Our Oversight Approach consultation
Why are we consulting?
As well as our work on complaints about lawyers, the SLCC also has oversight of the complaint handling and redress arrangements delivered by the Relevant Professional Organisations (RPOs) – currently, the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates and the Association of Construction Attorneys.
We oversee how those bodies deal with conduct and regulatory complaints. This includes investigating complaints about how individual complaints have been handled and auditing complaint records.
We also monitor trends in complaints and use that data to issue guidance and best practice notes to the profession on how to deal with complaints and how to prevent common causes of complaints arising in the first place.
We actively take that guidance out to the profession each year through our outreach work which includes presentations, workshops and one to one discussions with firms and groups of practitioners and those entering the legal profession.
We publish headline data from our trends analysis and share detailed data with the professional bodies to inform their regulatory work.
We also use our statutory powers to monitor the arrangements that are in place relating to indemnity insurance and client protection funds.
The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025 (the 2025 Act) makes significant changes to the SLCC’s powers and remit. This includes making the SLCC a ‘regulatory authority’ and setting new regulatory objectives to guide the exercise of our regulatory functions. These new regulatory objectives apply to all regulatory authorities across the regulatory and complaints system. We recently published our regulatory statement in response to those objectives to guide our work.
The Act also gives the SLCC additional powers in relation to our oversight work.
We have an existing statement on our approach to our oversight work, which has proved a useful tool both internally and externally in setting out how we will deliver our oversight powers, in managing expectations and in holding ourselves to account.
We have taken the opportunity to revisit and update this statement to ensure it reflects our new powers and remains relevant. This consultation provides an opportunity to engage with stakeholders to help identify any new issues or likely areas of concern to inform our approach.
Who is the consultation for?
Our consultation is open to all and we welcome submissions from anyone with an interest in our work. However, we would particularly appreciate responses from:
- the relevant professional organisations
- other regulatory authorities
- legal services providers and groups representing providers
- consumers and consumer groups.
What happens next?
We will consider all submissions and a final statement will be agreed by our Board. We will publish our final statement on our website, along with the outcome of the consultation.
Policy considerations
There are various matters the SLCC takes into account when forming a decision – our consideration of these is set out below.
Policy/ impact considerations |
Preliminary conclusions |
|---|---|
Compatibility with Regulatory Objectives |
This statement is compatible with the Regulatory objectives. It specifically supports the objectives to:
and takes into account the principles that:
|
Significant new implications for public and consumers (including vulnerable consumers and equality groups) and compliance with the Consumer Duty |
A published approach is already in place, this statement simply updates it. Indirectly, the approach may impact positively on the services consumers receive or the first or second tier complaint handling they experience. |
Significant new implications for regulated sector/ business |
A published approach is already in place, this statement simply updates it. Implications for the sector include our potential influence on conduct and regulatory complaint procedures that they may be subject to, indirectly the cost of regulation if RPOs need to assign additional resources to deliver improvements we recommend, the impact of meeting any minimum standards we set for complaint handling or issues leading to complaints, or to comply with our requests for complaint logs. |
Any other major policy considerations |
No other identified considerations. |
Cybersecurity, IT, data protection or information governance implications |
This statement does not raise any data protection or GDPR issues. |
Significant finance or best value considerations |
This statement has been considered in light of the SLCC’s statement on best value. It addresses the regulatory principle of proportionality, that is, taking appropriate action as required. |
How to respond to this consultation
The consultation will run for 12 weeks, closing at 5pm on 18 November 2026.
You do not have to answer all the questions, only those where you have specific comments to make.
You can respond via email at: consult@scottishlegalcomplaints.org.uk or by sending a letter to:
Scottish Legal Complaints Commission
12-13 St Andrew Square
Edinburgh, EH2 2AF
You can response via Microsoft Forms:
Publishing responses
We will publish responses in full, alongside an analysis of the key issues raised in the consultation and any changes we have made as a result of the consultation. If you wish your response to remain anonymous, please check the appropriate box on the response form or state this clearly in your email or letter. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will still take account of your views in our analysis and we may identify you as part of a specific stakeholder group (e.g. consumer organisation or legal services provider), but we will not publish your response or list your name.
We aim to publish responses by Monday 14 December.
Supporting documents
