Bar Standards Board fails end-of-year inspection

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The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has been told it must immediately improve its performance by regulators after failing an end-of-year inspection.

The Legal Services Board (LSB) published its annual review of the eight legal service regulators, including the BSB and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), last week. The bodies are assessed by five “standards” using a three-part rating system of sufficient assurance, partial assurance and insufficient assurance.

The five standards for the regulatory bodies are:

• well-led;
• regulatory approach;
• authorisation;
• supervision; and
• enforcement.

The BSB was the only regulator to receive red ratings indicating “insufficient assurance”. The definition of this rating in the report states that regulator’s performance “raises serious concerns” in at least one area and “immediate action to address these concerns” is necessary.

The LSB assessment states: “The BSB has provided us with insufficient assurance against two of the current five standards: well-led and enforcement.”

Although the LSB has the legislative power to fine an underperforming regulator or even remove its leaders, these “nuclear options” aren’t being considered yet, according to the Gazette.

The results are in line with a performance review conducted by the BSB itself, which revealed that just 21% of cases are being referred for regulatory action within two weeks. The target for this action is set at 80%.

The SRA received a more positive review, meeting every standard with “sufficient assurance” except “enforcement” where it received a “partial assurance” rating. This was due to a failure to provide sufficient assurance about the quality of its complaints handling regarding solicitors and how it’ll improve in this area.

Regarding the review, Chris Nichols, director of policy and regulation at the LSB, said: “Over the coming year, we will roll out our new framework for assessing regulators’ performance. We will follow up on the themes and issues identified in this assessment and expect all the regulators to continue working on improving their performance.”