Commentary on Sections Background
30.Part 3 of the Act identifies the “reserved legal activities”, that is the forms of legal activities or services the provision of which is subject to the new regulatory regime.
31.Prior to commencement of the Act, regulators, such as the Law Society and the Bar Council, regulated the practitioners providing these services. In addition to these regulators, the system involved a number of other bodies acting in a regulatory capacity, including:
	the Secretary of State,
	the Master of the Rolls,
	the higher judiciary,
	the Legal Services Ombudsman,
	the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner,
	the Immigration Services Commissioner,
	the Home Secretary,
	the Department for Trade and Industry,
	the Office of Fair Trading,
	the Financial Services Authority, and
	the Archbishop of Canterbury.
32.In his 2004 independent review of legal services,(6) Sir David Clementi referred to observations that the current regulatory arrangements resembled a “maze” and stated that he agreed with the Government’s earlier statement(7) that the existing regulatory system for legal services was “outdated, inflexible, over-complex and not accountable or transparent enough”. In 2005, following Sir David’s report, the Department for Constitutional Affairs published a White Paper, The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First.(8) The White Paper detailed proposals to reform the current system by implementing a new regulatory framework that would remove the “regulatory maze” of oversight regulators.
33.This Part of the Act establishes the Legal Services Board which acts as an independent oversight regulator. It sits at the head of the new regulatory framework. The Board oversees the new approved regulators, and seeks to ensure that they carry out their regulatory functions to the required standards. Both the Board and the approved regulators must have regard to the regulatory objectives when exercising their functions.
34.This Part of the Act sets out the structure and functions of the Board. It outlines the functions that the Board has in relation to the regulatory objectives, and the ways that it will maintain these objectives. It also sets out the requirements for both appointment to and dismissal from the Board and the powers that the Lord Chancellor will have in relation to these processes.