ROLLONFRIDAY STORY, 20TH MAY 2005
Law Society condemned as chief exec gets fat bonus
The Law Society found itself on the back foot yet again this week when it emerged that despite its chief executive being paid a £28,000 bonus (see last week's story) members of the public were waiting up to 27 months to have their complaints dealt with.
Zahida Manzoor, the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, found that complainants had to wait an average of six months to have their cases looked into, and in some instances this stretched to well over two years. In one case the Society was so slovenly that it was forced to make four separate compensation payments. Manzoor said that the Society "has not yet turned around its handling of complaints", and added that it was "unacceptable that of the sample audited, there were found to be delays in seven out of 10 cases".
The Society claimed that things weren't nearly as black as Manzoor had painted, as the audit had only looked at cases up to 18 months ago. Chief executive Janet Paraskeva said that since then the Society had resolved over half its cases in under three months, and she had agreed a plan of action with Manzoor on how to improve procedures over the coming year. Manzoor described these plans as "adequate", but only "a small step forward".
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Under Paraskeva's stewardship the Society has been roundly criticised for its execrable performance, has wasted a huge amount of the profession's money and only managed to come up with half-cocked plans for getting its house in order. So on what possible basis was she awarded a bonus, taking her salary to almost three hundred grand? We gave the Society all day to think about it yesterday, but after six hours it still hadn't come up with a reason...