OSS

Consumer Complaints Service (Formerly OSS)

The Consumer Complaints Service has recently replaced the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. The address and telephone numbers remain the same, i.e. Victoria Court, 8 Dormer Place Leamington Spa Warwickshire CV32 5AE Tel: 0845 608 6565 (Calls charged at local rate) Fax: 01926 431435

" Willing Blindness" Report, February 2000, was extremely critical of the OSS. "It is a significant anomaly that the OSS has no statuory basis for punishing solicitors' misconduct. There is the worrying possibility that other than when referring matters to the SDT or limiting practising certificates, the Law Society's misconduct regime is built on sand."

It is too early to judge the Consumer Complaints Service but the complaints about the OSS below probably are still relevant

The Independent Commissioner to the Law Society Sir Stephen Lander issued his second report in April 2003, "REDRESS OR RULES". Telephone his office for a free copy (01926) 822186 or fax (01926) 823140.

The OSS claimed that it was: Working for excellence and fairness in guarding standards.

Most complainants found themselves disillusioned with the OSS. Many felt that their complaint is too easily dismissed or treated too lightly.

The OSS has been severely criticised for failing complainants. However, it is still worth complaining as matters are supposed to have improved, compensation has improved and unless you test the system, you can hardly complain about it.

Start. You can start by telephoning the helpline. Provided the OSS accepts your complaint, and this happens in a small minority of the cases only, you will be assigned a case officer.

Case officers, usually solicitors, tend to change frequently and you may have to deal with more than one. The case officer may wish to review your file - this only happens with approx. 1.5 % of the complaints made. The case officer will make a First Instance Decision (FID).

Complainants Generally: If your complaint to the OSS is about poor service, that your instructions have not been followed, negligence or conduct, ensure that your complaint is examined for poor service and conduct first.

Negligence: The OSS will not deal with negligence by solicitors and may try to sideline all your complaints into negligence.They can put you in touch with a negligence panel solicitor.

Telephone calls: Keep dated notes and records of calls to and from the OSS as you will not necessarily be sent a letter of confirmation and disputes can arise later.

Local Conciliation Officer: Complainants can ask to see an OSS Local Conciliation Officer, generally a solicitor, to discuss their case but this is not common.

First Instance Decision: The case officer will make a First Instance Decision (FID). If your complaint is dismissed, you can appeal. The time allowed is three weeks and the Appeal Committee consists of two solicitors and one lay member.

Appeals: The Willing Blindness Report criticised the OSS Appeal process - evidently in too many appeals only selected papers were examined, not the complete OSS file. In a minority of cases, the OSS actually does award compensation for poor service of up to £5,000. The OSS can discipline the solicitor and can order the solicitor's bill to be reduced.

Compensation Fund: Complainants who have suffered a loss or hardship as a result of their solicitor's dishonesty can apply to the Compensation Fund for a grant. The OSS, on behalf of the Law Society, runs the fund and can grant up to £1 million. (Ring Compensation Fund 01926 820082 0r 820083,and ask for copy of "The compensation booklet" /FIB/5/2000)

The Solicitor's Disiplinary Tribunal: The OSS or any member of the public can also refer the complaint to the Solicitor's Disciplinary Tribunal. (The risk is the same as in other Courts, i.e.costs can be awarded against you). From there it is possible to appeal to the House of Lords.

Delay: The OSS may take months or even several years to deal with complaints. The Law Society has had to spend an extra £10 million on extra staff and systems to deal with the backlog of complaints after a serious warning from the Lord Chancellor. Some of the backlog still remains.

The Legal Services Ombudsman has stated that the quality of the OSS complaint handling has deteriorated. A Complaints Commissioner, with powers to impose heavy fines, could be appointed by the Lord Chancellor if the backlog has not reduced and quality of complaint handling improved. The Law Society would have to pay for this new office.

N.B. To date, the OSS has reduced the backlog but the quality of investigation apparently has deteriorated. Decision likely after the Ombudsman's July Report.

The compensation payable by OSS, up to £ 5,000, covers all issues of poor service, conduct and negligence. It is sometimes difficult to separate these issues in minor cases. Above that threshold, negligence is treated separately.

The OSS is funded and run by the Law Society - staffed mainly by solicitors and ten of the Committee's 25 members are lay members. Solicitors are in a majority. Theoretically it is an independent body but in 1999 the Law Society removed the previous director and took direct control. His replacement also left recently.

Drinking in last chance saloon? Its inefficiency was so great that the present Lord Chancellor gave the OSS until the end of the year 2000 to put its house in order. The OSS has published its Annual Report for 1999; it appears that they received 20,352 new cases during that year; of these 17,177 were complaints.

Mr John Plane, stated that the aim of the OSS was to conciliate whenever possible and that it would only investigate when that was not possible. The Customer Assistant Unit was supposed to provide enquiriers with a speedy, helpful service. In practice, there seemed a reluctance to treat an enquiry as a complaint and to appoint a case worker. The lack of written correspondence is a problem if there is a dispute about the way the complaint is being handled. It does seem that there is every incentive to conciliate quickly yet conciliation without proper investigation cannot be right.

CASIA asked the Law Society how many cases of misconduct were investigated other than in those cases relating to financial matters. A reply is a long time coming.

Various investigations havebeen carried out. (See Chronology of Complaints System) The Report by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, called "Willing Blindness", was so called because case workers, under extreme pressure to close investigations at all costs to reduce the backlog of complaints, alleged that the management were willing blind to the problems and obstacles of dealing with complaints on their merits.

"OSS statistics can be faked. There is a sort of yes-man culture amongst management and they will be deliberately blind to what is going on. We will get mixed signals." Excerpt from page 62.

The authors of the Report were Richard Moorhead, head of the Institute, Sarah Rogers and Professor Avrom Sherr. Richard Moorhead called for a champion of users of legal services. Report is available from the Law Society bookshop at £10 plus £1 postage.

A Commissioner has been appointed to oversee the complaint system recently but he will not investigate individual complaints apparently but just concentrate on written Reports

Negligence:The OSS says that it cannot investigate complaints of negligence. However, many complaints of misconduct have an element of negligence in them and CASIA believes that complaints of misconduct should be investigated first before there is any decision about what is negligence and what was not. A layman should not have to judge the exact catergory of his complaint before it is investigated.

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