Legal Services Board draft business plan 2026/27 – Law Society response

The draft business plan

The LSB is the oversight regulator for legal services in England and Wales. It oversees regulators including the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

The LSB also has responsibilities in relation to the Office for Legal Complaints (OLC), the board of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO).

Its 2026/27 business plan sets out four objectives:

1. ensuring an effective, proportionate and targeted approach to regulatory oversight to drive up performance where improvements are needed
2. focusing its policy work where it can have the most impact, so it delivers meaningful change for consumers and the profession
3. improving its capability to respond strategically to the needs of the sector, informed by learning from horizon-scanning and research
4. enabling organisational excellence and efficiency

The LSB’s 2026/27 policy priorities are:

• professional ethics and the rule of law
• encouraging a diverse legal profession
• consumer protection
• harnessing technology and innovation to support access to justice and efficiencies in the legal sector

The LSB’s proposed budget for 2026/27 is £5.688 million – a 0.5% reduction on its 2025/26 budget.

Our view

The LSB continues to acknowledge calls from stakeholders to focus on its core function under the Legal Services Act 2007.

“Strengthening regulatory oversight by monitoring regulators’ performance and identifying key concerns will directly benefit consumers of legal services,” said Law Society president Mark Evans.

“This is particularly important given the LSB’s identification of the legal market’s continuous and rapid change, to avoid repeats of collapses and consumer harm such as Axiom Ince and SSB Group.

“Robustly holding regulators such as the SRA to account via close monitoring of the enforcement actions initiated against them will ensure the public can have confidence that regulators are working effectively and in the public interest.

“This is particularly important to prevent or mitigate the risks of Axiom Ince and SSB-type scenarios happening again.”

The LSB should also focus on addressing LeO’s performance issues and increase monitoring and evaluation of the OLC, to make sure they are fair and transparent and that consumers of legal services and the profession have confidence in the redress mechanism.

We are pleased to see a continuing focus on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), which aligns with our strategic priorities and the regulatory objectives.

Following the high budget increase last year, we welcome the LSB’s reduction of 0.5% in budget. We would expect such efficiencies to be reflected in future consultations.

What this means for solicitors

We welcome a more proactive approach to horizon-scanning and identifying risks alongside more robust oversight of regulators.

This is important given the issues that have arisen with regulators in recent years and the negative impact on the reputation and trust in the legal profession.

Next steps

The consultation closed on 11 February 2026.

Read the consultation on the LSB website.

The LSB will consider the consultation feedback and make any relevant amendments to its business plan.

It will publish its responses to the consultation alongside the final business plan.

We look forward to working closely with the LSB, the SRA and others, providing insight through our members’ views and experiences and our research programme.