Legal Services Bill [HL]

I shall attempt to be similarly telegraphic. I agree with the noble Lord completely in his Amendment No. 128. If I might, I will take it away to make sure that we have captured it by the next stage. I agree that there should be no uncertainty in this area. If I have not quite captured that in the Bill, I agree that we should do so. Therefore, I would like to take the matter away for consideration. I understand what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve in his Amendments Nos. 131 and 132, but we make it clear that safeguards are in place to monitor what functions the ombudsman can delegate. I say ““delegate”” and not ““transfer””, because it is a fundamental difference. The Bill allows the ombudsman to delegate only in relation to making an investigation in consideration of a complaint. They cannot delegate their function to a member of staff in respect of determining a complaint. That is a fundamental and critical difference. We hope that the staff appointed by the OLC will be the first port of call for complaints. We want it to investigate and, we hope, to resolve complaints, where possible by mediation. That would be the best possible outcome. We hope that the delegation of the functions that I have described will help to facilitate the speedy and—dare I say?—inexpensive resolution of consumer complaints. I am not sure that much would be gained by requiring those functions to be specified in the scheme rules. The OLC and the chief ombudsman will ultimately be responsible for all of the actions of the caseworkers. They will oversee the exercise of the functions and, if those functions are not being exercised appropriately, they will not be delegated. As I have already indicated, there is no question that those functions are not being transferred to enable the frontline staff to deal with the issues that I have identified and the OLC and the chief ombudsman will not be able to delegate the determination of a complaint to any member of staff.