Regulatory Statement consultation
(THIS CONSULTATION IS NOW CLOSED)
Why are we consulting?
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. However, each regulatory authority will need to consider how it interprets the objectives with reference to its own powers and functions and how it will exercise its regulatory functions in a manner which “is compatible with the regulatory objectives, and it considers most appropriate to meet those objectives” (s3, 2025 Act).
Our draft Regulatory Statement outlines our understanding of the regulatory objectives and our initial thinking on how we will apply these to our work as we begin to implement the changes delivered by the 2025 Act. This consultation provides an opportunity to engage with stakeholders to help identify any new issues or likely areas of concern to inform our approach.
We plan to publish a final version of the Statement following consultation. However, the Statement will remain under review and further updates may be made as we learn from the implementation of the Act – it will remain a live document and open for discussion.
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:
- 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 responds directly to the Regulatory Objectives, considering how we will apply each of them to our work. |
Significant new implications for public and consumers (including vulnerable consumers and equality groups) and compliance with the Consumer Duty |
The Regulatory Objectives are intended to have a significant impact on the public/ consumer experience of legal services. We believe our approach will have a positive impact on the public and consumers and that is set out in the statement. When we make a strategic decision, like this one, we need to consider compliance with the Consumer Duty. We will carry out an impact assessment as part of this consideration. We have drawn on existing consumer insight in developing the statement and we intend to consult publicly, including with consumer groups, to inform the final statement. |
Significant new implications for regulated sector/ business |
The Regulatory Objectives are intended to have a significant impact on the legal services sector’s experience of regulation. We believe our approach will have a positive impact on the regulated sector and that is set out within the Regulatory Statement. |
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. It also responds to the consumer principles, ensuring that services are accessible and consumers are treated fairly. |
How to respond to this consultation
This consultation is now closed.
Publishing responses
Responses received are published below, along with an analysis of the key issues raised in the consultation and the changes we have made as a result of the consultation.
Consultation responses received
Analysis of comments received
We received some general comments on our statement along with a number of specific comments relating to the wording of particular sections. We considered all the comments received. Where these proposed updates to the statement, we have set these out below along with the actions we have taken to address them.
Statement to remain live (introduction)
The Lord President, Consumer Panel and Law Society all commented on the need for the statement to remain live and to be updated as required. We have added a specific sentence to the introduction to the statement to clarify this commitment.
Definition of a consumer (objective 2)
Both Faculty and Law Society highlighted the statutory definition of a consumer as set out set out in the Consumer Scotland Act 2020. We have updated our definition to refer to that.
Definition of the public interest (objective 2)
Following further internal discussion, we have updated our definition of the public interest in this statement and will use this definition across our work.
Balancing consumer and public interest (objective 2)
The Law Society asked us to consider adding further details on balancing the consumer and public interest under objective 2. We have considered this, but this statement does not feel like the right place for that detail, nor is it likely to be helpful to a consumer here. We have therefore made no update to the statement in response to this comment, but will consider this further in our consumer-facing communications.
Supporting and promoting consumer voice (objective 2)
Faculty, the Scottish Law Agents Society and Law Society all raised concerns about the wording relating to the SLCC’s role in supporting and promoting the consumer voice. We have reworded this section to clarify our role in supporting the independent Consumer Panel.
Mitigating identified harms for consumers (objective 2)
Both Consumer Scotland and the Consumer Panel highlighted the need to put in place measures to mitigate identified harm for consumers and we have added wording to that effect to the updated statement.
Meeting consumer needs (objective 3)
Consumer Scotland welcomed a number of specific aspects of the statement. They specifically suggested adding references on the need for processes to be timely in order to meet consumer needs, and to recognise that there may be groups of legal service users who may be under-represented in our complaints data. We have added both of these to the updated statement.
Our role in promoting an independent, strong and diverse legal profession (objective 4)
Faculty raised concerns about our role in delivering this objective. We agree that others are better placed to deliver this and so we have removed two of the statements we proposed under this objective and made a more general comment about discharging our duties in a way that considers our impact on this objective.
Law Society raised concerns about the wording used to suggest that the profession must balance their responsibilities to act in the best interests of a client with responsibilities as an officer of the court and to the wider public interest. They note that there is no duty under the statutory professional principles for the profession to consider the wider public interest. We considered this response and looked at previous statements regarding the profession’s responsibilities. We have inserted wording from the Lord President’s response to the independent review which specifically touched on this point.
Technical wording
Law Society suggested our proposed wording on consistent application of our ‘regulation and judgements’ and ‘regulations and decisions’ was potentially confusing, given our role, so we have updated this under objective 1 and objective 9 to ‘policies and guidance’
Law Society suggested updating the wording in objective 5 to avoid confusion and we have amended in line with their comments.
Law Society highlighted wording in objective 9 which should be updated in line with the wording in the Act as passed, and we have done so.
