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The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is the board of the Legal Ombudsman, the free service that investigates complaints about lawyers in England and Wales.
The OLC was established by the Legal Services Act 2007. The Legal Services Board, a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice, appoints the OLC's members.
The OLC ensures that they and the Legal Ombudsman promote the regulatory objectives set out in the Act, which are:
The OLC has eight members, including Steve Green, the chair. It meets regularly and has created three committees to help it fulfil its role. The first is the Audit and Risk Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the Legal Ombudsman's risk management processes, governance and financial control framework. The second is the Remuneration and Nomination Committee, which is responsible for overseeing, among other things, the terms of employment of Legal Ombudsman staff. The third is the Category 1 Publications Committee, which oversees the approval process to publish details where the OLC has identified a serious risk to the public from a particular legal service provider. [1]
Previous OLC members included:
The Standards Board for England was a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Established under the Local Government Act 2000, it was responsible for promoting high ethical standards in local government. It oversaw the nationally imposed Code of Conduct, which covered elected and co-opted members across a range of local authorities. The board maintained an independent national overview of local investigations into allegations that members' conduct might have fallen short of the required standards. In certain cases the board itself investigated allegations. It could not impose sanctions on members, but if it considered that further action might be necessary, it referred cases to the Adjudication Panel for England or to the relevant authority's own standards committee for determination. Standards committees could suspend members for up to six months. The Adjudication Panel could disqualify members for up to five years. The Standards Board for England also provided advice, and produced formal guidance, to members and officers on the Code of Conduct.
The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) and the National Intelligence Community (NIC) or National Security Community of the Australian Government are the collectives of statutory intelligence agencies, policy departments, and other government agencies concerned with protecting and advancing the national security and national interests of the Commonwealth of Australia. The intelligence and security agencies of the Australian Government have evolved since the Second World War and the Cold War and saw transformation and expansion during the Global War on Terrorism with military deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq and against ISIS in Syria. Key international and national security issues for the Australian Intelligence Community include terrorism and violent extremism, cybersecurity, transnational crime, the rise of China, and Pacific regional security.
Parliamentary Ombudsman is the name of the principal ombudsman institutions in Finland, in Iceland, in Denmark, in Norway, and in Sweden. In each case, the terms refer both to the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and to an individual Ombudsman.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, legally the Commission for Local Administration in England and formerly known as the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), is a service that investigates complaints from the public about councils and some other bodies providing public services in England. It also investigates complaints about registered adult social care providers. It is the last stage of the complaints process, for people who have given the council or provider opportunity to resolve the issue first. It is a free service. Similar duties are carried out by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and the Northern Ireland Ombudsman. The current Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is Michael King.
The California Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) is a department within the California Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. DCA's stated mission is to serve the interests of California's consumers by ensuring a standard of professionalism in key industries and promoting informed consumer practices. The DCA provides the public with information on safe consumer practices, in an effort to protect the public from unscrupulous or unqualified people who promote deceptive products or services.
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones, Baron Clement-Jones, is a Liberal Democrat Peer and their spokesman for the digital economy in the House of Lords.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales.
The Law Society of British Columbia is the regulatory body for lawyers in British Columbia, Canada.
Manitoba Justice, or the Department of Justice, is the provincial government department responsible for administering the Crown Law justice systems in the province of Manitoba.
The Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government, with responsibility for protecting children at risk. SCRA was formed under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1994 and became fully operational on 1 April 1996, taking over responsibility for the existing system of Children's Reporters.
The Legal Services Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that seeks to liberalise and regulate the market for legal services in England and Wales, to encourage more competition and to provide a new route for consumer complaints. It also makes provisions about the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007.
The Legal Services Board is an independent body responsible for overseeing the regulation of lawyers in England and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, created through the Legal Services Act of 2007.
Ombudsmen in Australia are independent agencies who assist when a dispute arises between individuals and industry bodies or government agencies. Government ombudsman services are free to the public, like many other ombudsman and dispute resolution services, and are a means of resolving disputes outside of the court systems. Australia has an ombudsman assigned for each state; as well as an ombudsman for the Commonwealth of Australia. As laws differ between states just one process, or policy, cannot be used across the Commonwealth. All government bodies are within the jurisdiction of the ombudsman.
The Authorised Conveyancing Practitioners Board is the regulatory organisation and professional association for authorised conveyancers in the United Kingdom. Created in 1990 by the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, the Practitioners Board oversees authorised conveyancers in the United Kingdom, advising the Lord Chancellor on conveyancing matters, regulating authorised conveyancers and preventing the creation of conveyancing monopolies like those that existed before the 1990 act.
An ombudsman, ombudsperson, ombud, ombuds, or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament but with a significant degree of independence. In some countries, an inspector general, citizen advocate or other official may have duties similar to those of a national ombudsman and may also be appointed by a legislature. Below the national level, an ombudsman may be appointed by a state, local, or municipal government. Unofficial ombudsmen may be appointed by, or even work for, a corporation such as a utility supplier, newspaper, NGO, or professional regulatory body.
The Ministry of Justice is one of the 12 ministries which comprise the Finnish Government. Headed by the Minister of Justice, it is responsible for maintaining the legal safeguards necessary for the successful operation of democracy and fundamental rights of the inhabitants of Finland.
A children's ombudsman, children's commissioner, youth commissioner, child advocate, children's commission, youth ombudsman or equivalent body is a public authority in various countries charged with the protection and promotion of the rights of children and young people, either in society at large, or in specific categories such as children in contact with the care system. The agencies usually have a substantial degree of independence from the executive, and generally operate as specialised ombudsman offices or national human rights institutions, dealing with individual complaints, intervening with other public authorities, conducting research, and – where their mandate permits them to engage in advocacy – generally promoting children's rights in public policy, law and practice. The first children's commissioner was established in Norway in 1981. The creation of such institutions has been promoted by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, and, from 1990 onwards, by the Council of Europe.
The Legal Ombudsman is an ombudsman service that opened in October 2010. It is a free service that investigates complaints about lawyers in England and Wales. The Legal Ombudsman was set up as a result of the Legal Services Act 2007 and took over from the Legal Complaints Service and other legal complaint-handling bodies. The current Chief Ombudsman is Paul McFadden, who replaced Rebecca Marsh in January 2021, Marsh having left the post in the summer of 2020 after being in post since April 2019. The Legal Ombudsman is a member of the Ombudsman Association.
Walter Hugh Merricks, who qualified as an English solicitor, has held a number of senior appointments in legal and public institutions, the best known being his tenure as the inaugural Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service. He is now Chair of IMPRESS, the Independent Monitor for the Press, and the law reform charity JUSTICE. He is a member of the Civil Aviation Authority's consumer panel. As proposed class representative, he has filed a £14 billion class action claim on behalf of British consumers against MasterCard Incorporated before the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
The Office of the Provedor for Human Rights and Justice, or Provedoria dos Direitos Humanos e Justiça (PDHJ), is the National Human Rights Institution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. It was established under Section 27 of the Constitution of Timor-Leste in May 2002 and first opened its doors in 2006. The PDHJ has a dual mandate covering human rights and good governance.