Legal Services Board Business Plan published

The Legal Services Board (LSB) has published its Business Plan for 2009/10 and a consultation on proposals for recovering the costs of regulation from the legal services profession. Alongside these announcements, the LSB has also confirmed the make-up of its senior management team.

The LSB's Business Plan, developed following consultation with stakeholders, describes how the legal services market place is expected to evolve to deliver improved benefits to consumers, to lawyers and to the public interest at large, over the next five years. It gives particular priority to work on regulatory independence, alternative business structures, providing effective redress and the development of a model of regulatory excellence in legal services.

Commenting on the announcements LSB Chairman, David Edmonds, said: "The appointment of our senior team, and the other decisions we are announcing, mark the next decisive steps in establishing the LSB.

"We will now be able to tackle the vital tasks of improving access to justice, promoting the interests of consumers and the public interest and opening up the legal market. Parliament has given us these responsibilities and I am delighted that our consultation exercise has shown wide support for our ambitious and innovative approach."

The senior team charged with delivering the programme of reforms will be:

• Director of Regulatory Practice - Fran Gillon, currently Director, Universal Service and Customer Protection at the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm)
• Director of Finance and Services - Edwin Josephs, most recently Director of Finance and Operations at the National Consumer Council
• General Counsel - Bruce Macmillan, currently EMEA Senior Counsel for the Consumer, Retail and Business distribution divisions for Dell Corporation
• Director of Corporate Affairs - Julie Myers, currently on secondment at the LSB from her post as Head of Strategy and Communications for the Bar Standards Board
• Director of Strategy and Research - Crispin Passmore, currently Strategy Director at the Legal Services Commission

All will be in their new roles by the middle of May.

As laid down in the Legal Services Act, the LSB must make rules to govern the way the costs of the LSB, and the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), are spread between the eight Approved Regulators. The leviable costs of implementing the LSB and the OLC will be no more than the £19.9 million budget set aside for the reform programme announced by the Ministry of Justice during the passage of the Legal Services Act 2007.

To download a copy of the Business Plan click here.