LSB publishes review of regulator performance

CILEx Regulation Ltd (CRL) has provided “partial assurance” it met the standards required of regulators, the Legal Services Board (LSB) announced in February.

The oversight regulator published its 2023 performance review of all the regulators, judged against two standards: whether they are ‘well led’ and have an ‘effective approach to regulation’.

CRL, the LSB noted, had demonstrated some improvement in areas of concern relating to the transparency of its decision-making and articulating its approach to regulation that had been identified in the 2022 assessment.

It acknowledged there had been significant change at CRL in the last 12 months and that “nonetheless, CRL has been able to provide us with assurance that overall, it is maintaining effective regulation during a period of uncertainty. While there are signs of progress, we consider that further assurance will be needed in due course to demonstrate that CRL meets the two standards in full”.

A third standard, concerning operational delivery, which includes enforcement, will be applied to the next assessment.

The majority of other legal regulators were also benchmarked as partially meeting standards in the two categories with only the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Costs Lawyers Standard Board rated as ‘sufficient’ for both.