Chamber and committees

Is it on the back of Roddy Dunlop’s comments?

Do any of the witnesses wish to expand on the arguments that we have heard about the conflict of interests in professional bodies being regulators?

How would the Law Society choose between its joint professional and regulatory interests when it comes to lobbying, for instance, or providing input to draft legislation?

Thank you. I turn to the Faculty of Advocates, which also has concerns about the complaints system and the role of the SLCC. I give you a wee opportunity to talk about complaints and the SLCC’s role in that regard.

Are you content with that, Fulton? I got a thumbs-up there—that is great.

I will explore the issue of complaints. In previous witness sessions, we have heard a lot on that theme. The Law Society has said that the current complaints system

“is too slow, too rigid, too complex and increasingly expensive to operate.”

I go to either Rachel Wood or David Gordon. What are your suggestions to make it less expensive and more efficient? Does the bill cover that?

That is fine; I will go over to SLAS.

I suppose that there is also the cost of setting up a system to process that. I imagine that, even with a nominal fee of £30, the creation of such a system would cost quite a lot of money.

Rachel—you indicated that you might wish to come in. Please do.

Thank you for that. We are coming to the end of our session, so I want to ensure that we have covered everything. There is one area that we appear not to have touched on.

In the first instance, I ask the Law Society to expand on its argument that the rules in section 81 of the bill, which allow charities to employ solicitors to carry out reserved legal services, are not desirable and should be replaced by allowing third sector organisations to establish themselves as licensed legal service providers and to operate as alternative business structures. It would be good to get some views on that.

Thank you very much for that. That is brilliant.

We have come to the end of questions, but we have a few minutes in hand, so I want to ensure that everybody on the panel has had an opportunity to say what they wanted to say. If there is a burning topic that any of the witnesses has not managed to bring up through our questioning, and they would like the opportunity to speak on it, this is their moment.

Are you happy with that response, Karen?