Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the legal ombudsman in the system of complaint procedure.

The Ministry of Justice sponsors the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), the arrangements for which, including monitoring the performance of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) scheme, are set out in a framework document.

In its recent business plan consultation, the OLC acknowledges that performance has been below expectations and identified new approaches to drive improvements. These include identifying opportunities within the OLC to speed up the complaints process, increasing the early resolution of cases through early negotiation, and using technology to free up manual intervention into initial customer enquiries. Senior officials from the MoJ are in regular contact with the OLC and senior staff at LeO as they seek to improve performance.