In 2017, the Scottish Government commissioned an independent Review of the regulation of legal services in Scotland (known as the Robertson Review). The primary recommendation from this was:
“There should be a single regulator for all providers of legal services in Scotland. It should be independent of both government and those it regulates. It should be responsible for the whole system of regulation including entry, standards and monitoring, complaints and redress. Regulation should cover individuals, entities and activities, and the single regulator should be a body accountable to the Scottish Parliament and subject to scrutiny by Audit Scotland.”
This represented a significant departure from the current model and was a source of contention. The Scottish Government set out, therefore, to find some degree of consensus in order to move forward, one element of which was to run a public consultation exercise.
The consultation document set out and sought views on three possible models for change – one based on the primary recommendation from the Robertson Review, and two alternatives (see Appendix A). The consultation ran from 1 October to 24 December 2021.
The results and recommendations can be found in the report linked below.