In March 2021, the Legal Services Board (LSB) published a strategy to reshape legal services. Since then, we’ve developed the reshaping legal services podcast series to document progress across the sector against the strategy's challenges and identify ways for stakeholders to collaborate and deliver on reshaping legal services to better meet society's needs.

In this episode, Dr Helen Phillips, Chair of the LSB, shares her reflections as she prepares to step down from the role at the end of her term of office.

Welcome to the reshaping legal services podcast hosted by the Legal Services Board. My name is Suganya, and I'm a regulatory policy manager here at the LSB. I'll be presenting this series while Tanya Hardcastle is away on parental leave. In March 2021, the Legal Services Board published its 10 year sector wide strategy to reshape legal services. And since publishing this strategy, we've developed the reshaping legal services podcast series, to document progress across the sector, against the strategies challenges, and identify ways for stakeholders to collaborate and deliver on reshaping legal services to better meet society's needs. For this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Helen Phillips chair at the LSB. Helen has been at the LSB for almost eight years, joining the LSB as a lay member in 2015, and then being appointed chair in 2018. She also currently chairs the boards of the Chartered Insurance Institute, and Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Today, Helen will be sharing with us her reflections on progress and legal services regulation as outgoing chair at the LSP.

So hi, Helen, how are you?

Hello, afternoon, are you? Well?

Yes, I'm very well. So we're just hoping to speak to you a little bit today about your reflections as chair, maybe we can start with helping the listeners get a better sense of kind of who you are and how you got to the LSB. So wondering if you can share a few words about your journey to the LSB. And what made you kind of want to become chair.

Well, the importance of the mission of the LSB. I mean, we do very important work, don't worry about protecting consumers interests and advancing consumers interests and protecting the public interest. But needing to do that, at the same time as recognizing you have to work hand in glove with an ancient and esteemed profession, that itself has that very same objective. So finding a way to do that working in concert, I recommend will be a pretty sophisticated regulatory challenge. So that's really what attracted me to it. And of course, and I must say in my reflections on leaving, you know, some very fine shares that went before me. And when I initially joined the board, so Michael Pitt was chair, and he left me a very fine legacy. So, you know, having then had the tenure I've had, it's been quite satisfying to have seen a number of the things that were add, Linson, are I, on my arrival come to fruition?

Well, that's a perfect segue into another question of what has been achieved during your time as chair here that you're quite proud of, and that you've continued on the legacy, as you said, of the previous chairs.

That's the first one to point out probably might seem a bit boring, because I would point to the improvements in our core regulatory function. I always think it's very important, isn't it that you kind of get the basics and the knitting right, in order to have the right foundation to take on kind of more lofty ambitions or goals. And also, I've alluded to the fact that as an oversight regulator, there's a particular sort of challenge. And I think we have become more proportionate, more modern and more risk based. And recognizing that this is a sector that wants to invest in specialist regulation, we don't want one size to fit all, because that is one of the advantages of specialist regulation, that it can be more tailored. But of course, as the oversight regulator, we need to make sure that the outcomes are the same in terms of the consumer interest or the public interest. I think the approach to kind of our knitting or I call regulatory functions has evolved in such a way that it is demanding in terms of the outcomes we want to achieve in a consistent way, but very permissive. And how it is regulators go about doing that. And I think it's also put much more onus and obligation on the boards of the frontline regulators, to make sure that their organizations are well LED. That was not a concept we had embraced on my arrival here. And it's really important if you're to be proportionate, that you can rely on the assurances that those frontline regulators are themselves relying upon. But we've needed to codify that in a particular way. And of course, this year's round of regulatory assessments, you know, we're kind of halfway there and we'll be doing I guess in its totality, next time around, but I think that's given us a much clearer picture. And more importantly, given frontline regulators a much clearer picture of what it is they're good at, and what it is they, you know, need to do more work with respect to assuring the public and the profession that, you know, they're discharging their obligations fully and thoroughly. So I think that has been a very, very important development, along with, you know, you'll know when I tell you this, that I are indeed regulatory anorak. But having a part of that framework to regulation, I think we've got much staff here and using it in concert with other regulatory levers. So you know, when regulators come to us for change in the rulebook, or when they submit their PCF application, we don't go, oh, it's Monday. It's a new day. It's the PCN, we think about, in the context of the most recent performance assessment, you know, what is the adequacy of the PCF in terms of meeting the requirements that this regulator has at this particular moment in this particular context, and, and likewise, with changes to the rulebook, I also think the source book that's come out with the app, the new Postal Regulatory assessments will also be a great, well, great source book, in terms of somewhere to go and look and get ideas that hopefully are not prescriptive, but make it perfectly clear what an option to compliance is, and brings to light what what acceptable regulatory minima look like. So I should probably pause for breath, really. But there are other things I could certainly highlight. And in terms of, you know, what that solid foundation hasn't turned enabled us to do in terms of competence, or consumer empowerment, or a whole range of other things.

And just to maybe make it a little bit more accessible for those not familiar with regulation, when you say that base foundation, we're talking about regulators, abilities to appropriately and adequately regulate their professions in a way that protects our consumers Correct? Absolutely perfect. So what impact will be regulatory changes and updates and policy work that we're doing here at the LSB have on the real lives or the direct impact that it will have on consumers? Can us share a little bit about that.

And I think the work we've done on consumer empowerment is really important in that regard. And so that those who need legal service for think they might need legal services, can shop around in a way that they understand whether or not they kind of want an end to end solution or whether they want an unbundled solution. And what the likely cost or an indicative cost of that is going to be that they can compare that in a kind of, you know, like, for like way or having at least more of a sense of that. And also being able to make some judgments about quality themselves, or at least having confidence, that being accessing services of a regulated provider, that there are inbuilt assurances about the quality of that work, and indeed, access to redress and the small number of occasions where it goes wrong. And it's, you know, it's easy, isn't it for a consumer to think, Well, what did I get a nice cup of coffee and was the carpet thick, and you know, the latter column, nice quality paper or whatever. But by understanding the technical competence, it's not something you know, that the average consumer is in a good position to do. And we've had CPD continuous professional development in the profession for a very long time. But I think that is a slightly different thing, to ensuring ongoing competence, you know, it, continuous professional development is kind of like a gift to yourself. And the regulator can make sure that you're, you know, regularly giving yourself gifts, but it's not quite the same as an assessment about about competence. And I think, you know, if we accept the consumers are not well placed to make a judgement about quality, they deserve to have that assurance about competence. And I have been, you know, when we started out on this journey, there was quite a bit of her own thing. And I have been, you know, really delighted to see what has come back in terms of the, the way in which the concept has been embraced, and, and the innovation and thoughtfulness with which proposals have come back as to how this is going to be put in place and evolved.

So that's what we've done so far. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on what you think we still need to do at the lsb and more generally, in the legal services sector to help further the areas of work that we've identified through our reshaping legal services strategy.

You know, the legal needs survey tells us that there's quite a lot of improvement in terms of access to justice and meeting unmet legal need. But it also tells us that the best part of 30% of individuals have some unmet legal need on a contentious issue. So we know there's a very long way to go, in terms of meeting legal need. And I think that's tied up with a number of things, isn't it, it's tied up with transparency. And it's tied up with consumer empowerment, consumers being able to compare quality and price if if they're in the position to shop. And even if they're not in the position to shop, there are a lot of people who don't get legal lead when they could do with legally because they have a concern or an anxiety, there's going to be much more expensive than it is. So that would empower a greater number of consumers before we get to those for whom it is we need to do something different, because they genuinely don't have the ability for whatever reason to access that. So I think that whole issue about unmet medical need is very, very tied up with the whole consumer empowerment and transparency piece that we have worked so hard, and I need to do even more on the other thing that it's tied to, in my mind, and we don't necessarily draw the dots in this regard, all the time. But it's very much related to the quality of diversity and inclusion, I suppose, you know, going back to looking forward and and reflecting I, as chair have one regret, which is I presided over the issuing of two sets of guidance on improving diversity in the profession. Bless me, in my naivety thinking that enlightened self interest would prevail, and everybody who wouldn't know that diversity was a good thing. Well, I think, rather than this, don't start off with the benefit of hindsight. So as you well know, now we have that kind of enshrined in the heart of our regulatory performance assessment, that whole bit about what progress we're making, and particularly in terms of career progression, because we've got much better in terms of the whole, you know, the quality of the professionals on entry, but it falls off a cliff, you know, on on promotional and on progression. But I'm also very proud of and have high expectations of the work, we've done a country inclusive practices, and the statement we've done and the way in which we've done that by collaborating across the sector, as opposed to using any regulatory lever, because I think there's far too much hope placed on attracting and retaining talent. Yeah, with not the necessary attention on inclusive workplaces, you know, you can attract people, but they're not going to stay long if you don't have an inclusive workplace. And I think that whole piece, we're talking about counter inclusive practices, like robbery, good practice looks like it's really important. And the third, dark triad kind of join, and that whole piece will be the one around technology, and innovation. We spent a long time at the LSB along with everyone else scratching our heads about what all this meant, and what was the mode of AI? What are the ethical considerations that you need to regulate as to Ardra. But I think, you know, our most recent differences, and those that are to come are much more practical, about technology in the context of lowering cost, improving choice, increasing access. So, you know, good progress, but again, plenty more to do and I should be looking with interest from the sidelines.

Okay, so those are three key areas that we'll likely continue to work on over the overarching umbrella of improving access to justice. I think that leaves us in a good spot to maybe end with a question of how we can continue building momentum over the next few years. I think you mentioned in response to the first question, that the way we've been modifying the way we've worked with frontline regulators, and perhaps some other folks in the sector has enhanced the regulation and regulatory framework that governs those in the legal sector, but would be curious to hear if there are other ways in which we could help build momentum and continue going on the way.

Yeah, great question. I think that was exemplified in the approach we took to refreshing the strategy, the LSB. So when the strategy kind of ran out, and it was time to refresh it, we thought that, you know, being the best part of 10 years old, frankly, we weren't going to have the impact we needed to have unless we were playing our part in the context of everybody else playing their part. Because these outcomes, we're talking about our big outcomes that require profound change, you know, in society, by consumers and by the profession. And when we went out and the first thing we did was reduced to State of the Nation report. So we could really understand, you know, the legal services sector as it was at that point in time, 10 years after the legislation. And on the back of that, and having really evidenced the scale of the change that's required, we went out and said, to those we worked most closely with, you know, is it the right time to have a strategy for the sector? And the response to that was an overwhelming yes. Because really, we do need to amplify, rather than duplicate each other's efforts. And we do need to make sure that our efforts are targeted at the most profound changes that are required. And I mean, if you go to our microsite, and you look at the lovely examples there, of what it is not the LSB is nothing to do with the LSB is curating and supporting and facilitating, and I hope being a very good ally, to those who are making a real difference. I think that, that in terms of the way of working has also been a profound shift, and one that inevitably more of will be required into the future.

Thank you for that. Thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing your reflections as you're leaving. I'm sure you'll be on to more exciting things to come. But thank you for your contributions to this episode, as well as to the LSB.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you for listening. And we hope you found this episode helpful and engaging. If you're interested in participating in our shaping legal services work, either through a podcast or through contributing to the reshaping legal services microsite. Please get in touch at contact at reshaping legal services.org.uk. You can also find out more on the microsite at reshapinglegalservices.org.uk. Thank you.