Law Society, SRA and LCS give out £500,000 in bonuses
13 November 2009
The Legal Complaints Service has underlined its position as the most dynamic part of the Law Society by claiming the lion's share of this year's bonuses. Even though, errr, it's about to be closed down.
Over half a million pounds has been paid in bonuses to staff at the Legal Complaints Service (formerly a directorate of the Law Society, previously known as the Consumer Complaints Service and before that as the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors but about to be replaced by the Office for Legal Complaints). Keep up.
An internal memo sent to Law Society, Solicitors Regulation Authority and LCS staff last Friday confirmed that there wouldn't be any pay rises this year, but that £289,590 had already been given by way of bonuses to staff at the LCS. That compared to £128,149 paid in bonuses to the SRA, and £93,000 to the Law Society - even though the LCS has by far the fewest staff.
A spokeswoman for the Society said that different bonus arrangements had been agreed with the LCS's employees due to "
the exceptional business circumstances facing that part of the Society and its forthcoming closure expected some time in 2010".
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A LCS employee considering some complaints yesterday |
When asked why the Society thought it appropriate to be handing over half a million quid of the profession's money in the worst recession in living memory, the spokeswoman said that "
as part of the overall modernisation of the Society we are taking a more robust approach to rewarding success and dealing with under-performance so that we can continue to deliver improvements". Or put another way, the Law Society can see that handling complaints against solicitors is an exciting growth business.
STOP PRESS
The LCS has contacted RollOnFriday to say that there had been a mistake in the internal document, and the bonus figures for the SRA and the LCS should be the other way round. The LCS was unable to explain quite why the Law Society had not only confirmed the original figures, but had so effusively sought to justify them. The Law Society was too busy trying to find its arse with both hands in a darkened room to comment.