Commentary on Sections Background
122.As already stated in the background section to the Legal Services Board,(9) Sir David Clementi’s 2004 independent review of legal services referred to observations that the current regulatory arrangements resembled a “maze” and stated that he agreed with the Government’s earlier statement(10) that the existing regulatory system for legal services was “outdated, inflexible, over-complex and not accountable or transparent enough”. He proposed that an independent oversight regulator be established to simplify regulation and ensure that the system was clear to consumers. The Government’s White Paper, The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First,(11) set out how it was envisaged that this oversight regulator should operate: it should authorise approved regulators to carry out day-to-day regulation, and it would also need to be able to act if these approved regulators failed.
123.The White Paper stated that in most cases, the Board would want to work alongside regulators to help them improve where areas of weakness have been identified. However, where a regulator continued to fail, the Board would be able to remove authorisation in a particular area or areas of regulation, and either identify an alternative regulator, or carry out the regulatory functions itself.