SLCC confirms 2023-24 budget and levies but seeks further engagement with the profession

The organisation has confirmed that, following “two years of cuts, rebounding complaint numbers and rising energy, staffing, legal and court costs”, the levy will rise by nine per cent to just below pre-pandemic levels.

The SLCC has also asked the Law Society of Scotland to work with it to deliver the society’s request for further consultation on proposals to introduce a higher complaint levy for those firms who do not respond to statutory requests for files.

Interim chair, Niki Maclean said: “Our thanks go to those who took time to respond to our consultation and made helpful comments and suggestions. The SLCC Board considered all responses carefully and we look forward to working with stakeholders to deliver our operating plan for 2023-24.

“We know that any rise in the levy is unwelcome. Like all businesses we are facing additional costs pressures and we need to ensure we have sufficient budget to discharge our statutory duties.

“However, hard work in recent years has seen significant improvements in efficiency, and with those now embedded in the system, we have been able to limit the budget rise to below inflation and keep the levy below the level set in 2020/21.

“That commitment to efficiency continues to shape our approach, and we recently announced a significant multi-year saving arising from an office moved planned for our next operating year.

“As we made clear in the consultation, we now believe the greatest remaining efficiencies lie in reducing delays, staff time and costs spent pursuing files from firms not responding to statutory requests, and in legislative reform of the complaints process. Both form a significant part of our plans for the coming year.

“The Board also carefully considered comments on proposals to raise the complaint levy for those firms whose actions delay complaint investigations. Despite some comments to the contrary, this issue is significant, serious and has substantial cost implications for the SLCC and therefore the levy.

“We noted the comments from consumer organisations about the significant impact of delays on complainers, and we are very mindful of the impact of general levy rises on the wider profession, given the majority of firms work hard to meet requests for files and responses.

“We discussed the Law Society’s suggestion to wait to see if existing measures do have a demonstrable effect. However, our aim would be for this higher rate levy to act as a deterrent, and if existing measures have the desired impact, we should never be in the position of needing to apply the proposed higher rate.

“However, we were persuaded by the Law Society’s comments on the need for consultation directly with the profession on this approach. As such we agreed to approve the proposed higher levy rate now to allow us to implement that later next year if that’s agreed to be the best way forward, but we will apply an automatic discount for the next four months to allow us to carry out that further consultation. We look forward to working with the Law Society to ensure we are able to gather responses from across the profession before deciding on next steps.”

Chief executive Neil Stevenson said: “It is our duty as a responsible regulatory body acting in the public interest to ensure we have sufficient budget to discharge our statutory duties. Those duties are to deliver an efficient and effective complaints process in line with the expectations of Parliament and the public, to oversee the relevant professional organisations, and to improve complaint handling across the profession.

“While we welcome constructive challenge to our proposed budget and levies, any analysis or comparisons must be based on accurate data and must not be misleading.

“In addition, every year we ask for comments on appropriate apportionment across the profession but have yet to receive any response which proposes an alternative approach.

“We welcome comments from both consumer bodies and the profession on working collaboratively to achieve much needed legislative reform of the complaints and regulatory system. We look forward to doing this where there is common ground.

“However, we also expect this process will take some years and we are mindful of our duty to continue to take all possible steps within the current framework to discharge our duties as efficiently and effectively as we can. That is what our budget and operating plan aim to achieve.”