The Legal Services Board has issued a consultation paper that proposes potentially major changes to the regulation of immigration advice and services. The deadline for responses is 24 May 2011.
The LSB is critical of the current regulatory regime, saying of their own investigation into the immigration market in 2011:
This work has led us to the conclusion that there is likely to be significant consumer detriment because the qualifying regulators are not regulating immigration advice and services in a way that is consistent with the requirements of the 2007 Act. In addition, the complex regulatory architecture that exists for immigration advice and services presents the additional risks of gaps and overlaps in regulation, differences in approach (for example, for intervention powers and accreditation schemes) that are not justified by evidence and an overall lack of data and information about the market as a whole.
The demise of RLC and IAS certainly highlighted deficiencies in the OISC scheme, as the wind-downs have been less than orderly.
The qualifying regulators in England and Wales are the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Bar Standards Board and ILEX. The LSB is particularly critical of the way in which the Legal Services Commission was effectively forced by the inaction of the Law Society to become a de facto regulator in publicly funded work, observing that this is an inappropriate role for the funding contractor.
The consultation seeks views on, amongst other things:
- Making immigration advice and services a reserved legal activity. As things stand, that would restrict immigration work to solicitors, barristers and ILEX members, perhaps effectively ending the era of the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC). However, the consultation paper seems to suggest that the LSB is not proposing to exclude a class of advisers as such: “our aim would be to ensure continued consumer choice and access to justice through a wide range of properly regulated and controlled individuals and entities, rather than to exclude any category of provider from the market by moving to a system based on regulation of title.” This could mean making the OISC a qualifying regulator, for example.
- Forcing the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board to “implement coherent, evidence-based approaches to manage risks to consumers and the public interest in the provision of immigration advice and services” by the end of 2012, probably meaning examinations or tests of some sort for all practitioners. The emphasis in the consultation paper does seem to be more on solicitors than barristers.
- Reforming or unifying the complaints mechanisms and giving a right of complaint to the Legal Ombudsman in all immigration cases.
As an aside, some interesting statistics emerge from the consultation on the numbers of immigration practitioners:
just over 3,000 solicitors say that they practise in immigration advice and services (2.8%) and 4% of barristers indicate they practise in this area, with 2% stating that this is their main area of practice
That makes about 300 barristers who mainly practice in immigration law. I’m surprised it is that many! The missing statistic here is solicitor caseworkers and paralegals, though. As far as I can see it is unspoken in the consultation paper, but I suspect the real regulatory risk here as far as the LSB is concerned is non solicitors working at solicitors offices.
20 responses
Does that mean this is probably the end of the road for OISC? I am worried because i am about to apply for accreditation. Thanks
I take it you meant to type the deadline is 24 March 2012 not 24 March 2011
As a non-solicitor working in a solicitor’s office I would hope that we’re not all that bad. There are a number of solicitors (and non-solicitors) whom I could name, who are undermining the rule of law with some of their practices. Given how widespread abusive and fraudulent practice is in this sector amongst both qualified and non-qualified lawyers, I would definitely agree that the current regulatory regime is not working and I look forward to reading the LSB report.
I’m depressed!
In my own experience the worst offenders for appalling immigration advice have been private solicitors who never did immigration before, but decided they could make a few quid and jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago.
There is no obligation on them to take any kind of immigration training or exams so maybe the SRA that be targeted, not the OISC.
Absolutely agree. We visited the tribunal a while ago so we could better brief our students about what they could expect to happen when they make appeals.
The quality of representation was appallingly variable.
While we observed one brilliant solicitor, the others we observed seemed plainly disorganised. One gentleman we observed seemed to have a very loose grasp of the English language!
Some were obviously winging it and didn’t have the foggiest clue about the relevant rules and case law.
Trainees under solicitors, although not being supervised (at least enough), interpreters (supposedly under instructions from solicitors as an extended branch), secretaries of solicitors firms thinking they’re experienced enough… Heard it all from clients and spent countless hours trying to convince a disbelieving Border Agency of the problems clients had with these types of people. Over the years, I beg to wonder if my six year old daughter is not taking clients of her own (obviously with her own office). I do wonder sometimes though, how some migrants will agree to hand over (at times) thousands without leaving with a receipt or contract of work… C’est la Vie!
I very much agree with Amanda. It’s mainly unqualified immigration caseworkers who works for private solicitors firms, who are not regulated by the LSC nor by the OISC these are the people should be questioned. Having said that it is incorrect to generalise about solicitors or OISC regulated firms. At least the OISC concentrate in one area of law i.e.immigration as opposed to the SRA which covers all areas of law.
I happen to know a number of taxi drivers who would provide better advice than certain immigration reps (not south of article 8 though, well not at this time of night).
PO, maybe you should see if your colleagues could recruit them as IOs, so we might get an improvement in the quality of decision making.
Too true!
Hi Amanda. You’re right about what you say. Most solicitors are just too busy ripping everyone off to ever “care” about another thing! Don’t be depressed though because all this stuff about having X or Y certificate is just a formality.
At the English bar there some characters who can’t even one paragraph in English, maybe they should have a bright line rule at the Bar Council/BSB as well?
The problem of regulating legal services!
In Sindh province (Pakistan) the bar council just doesn’t issue any certificates at all. It took me five years after doing the bar exams in England to get a certificate for the High Court out of them. There the rule is to make people wait until they lose interest in becoming lawyers – until they just die …
It’s a Sindhi and Pakistani thing!
Even if they close down OISC, you will still qualify for FILEX.
Many IO’s are thought to have been moonlighting as taxi drivers, so you wish has been granted!
On a more serious note, the gulf in terms of competence and effectivness of ‘immigration lawyers’ is vast (in the view of this humble hard working public servant).
It’s a shame that IAS and even more so RLC were so inept in terms of balancing their books and thus sunk beneath the waves, they did provide a consistenly high level of representation, the gap left by them has been filled by numerous sharks and charlatans.
PO
You should be so lucky!
Hubris is terminal.
I doubt that the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) will be abolished but more clarity is obviously needed especially now that the ABS (Alternative Business Structures) companies are becoming the reality. The whole regulatory structure looks increasingly complex and difficult to follow so from that perspective more clarity would be welcome in my opinion.