Introduction
The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill is currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament.[1] The Bill sets out a new regulatory system and will impact on the way services are provided to consumers, and the way in which they can complain if they are unhappy with the services they receive. The Bill also puts in place a number of measures aimed at improving governance and oversight, requiring regulatory bodies to publish certain information and putting in place oversight powers, which may assist in improving consumer confidence in this market.
Consumer Scotland has been keen to ensure the legislative process is informed by consumer experience. In Autumn 2023 we commissioned YouGov to undertake research into consumer experiences of legal services in Scotland. We have already made extensive use of their findings to inform the briefings we have previously published and today we are publishing YouGov’s full report and data tables.[2] In this blog we will briefly highlight the key findings, while also reflecting on some of the areas where further research could provide more insight into consumer experience in this sector.
Key findings[3]
Overall, the research highlights the importance of legal services to consumers in Scotland. Around half (48%) of adults based in Scotland who responded said they had experienced issues in the last two years that indicated they may have needed legal support. The most common reported issue was dealing with wills, power of attorney, and estates of people who have died (18%), followed by an issue or dispute to do with employment, welfare, or benefits (17%). Nearly one third (31%) had used legal services in the last two years. The most frequently used legal services were buying and selling property (conveyancing) (37% of those who used legal services), obtaining a power of attorney (22%), will writing (21%) and dealing with the estates of people who have died (executry) (14%).[4]
Based on the data gained from the first survey, YouGov went on to survey those consumers who had actually used legal services in the last two years to find out how satisfied they were with the service they received. The research also explored a range of other issues including how respondents choose legal services, the extent to which they shop around, and how they found out about the cost. Overall the level of satisfaction with legal services was high - 86% of respondents were satisfied with the outcome of their issue and 84% were satisfied with the service provided. Satisfaction levels are similar to users of legal service providers in England and Wales (85%).[5] When looking at other sectors, it is comparable with satisfaction levels with broadband providers (85%)[6] and higher than the average satisfaction rate for energy providers (69%).[7]
Our research did identify some areas where satisfaction levels were lower. Only 59% of respondents considered the service provided to be good value for money - 11% thought it was poor value and 27% said it was neither good or poor. Consumers who responded to the survey also had low levels of awareness of how to make a complaint if they experienced a problem - less than half (44%) stated that they knew who to complain to, with more than a quarter uncertain (26%) and a significant proportion (30%) saying that they did not know. Even those respondents who said they were confident in knowing how to make a complaint struggled to identify the correct route, with a third (33%) providing answers which suggested an incorrect understanding of the process.
The reforms currently before Parliament retain a regulatory role for legal professional bodies. However, our findings also highlighted a clear perception amongst respondents that it is unacceptable for the same organisation to both regulate and represent lawyers. Of people who had used legal services in the last two years, 73% said this was unacceptable, with only 20% saying it was acceptable. For consumers to have confidence in the proposed reforms to the regulation of legal services there need to be strong checks and balances in place and the system must be transparent, accountable and subject to appropriate oversight. Consumer Scotland, along with other consumer bodies, continues to advocate for this and for other measures to enable the Bill to better meet consumer needs.
Further areas for research
One of the important aspects of any research project is reflecting on its limitations and identifying the areas where further research would be useful. The findings of the YouGov research were dominated by the experiences of those who had used only a small range of legal services. Those services – conveyancing, writing a will or obtaining a power of attorney – tend to be accessed in non-dispute situations. Indeed, writing a will, obtaining a power of attorney and skilled conveyancing can do a lot to prevent disputes arising in the first place. So, unfortunately the research can’t tell us much about the experiences of consumers who access legal services when they face a dispute situation, as the numbers were too small for useful analysis. This includes important areas of law where a negative experience could have significant impact such as a family or employment dispute, being injured as a result of someone’s negligence, facing eviction or being sued for a consumer debt. It also does not include the experience of consumers relating to criminal proceedings. More targeted research would be required to explore issues in these areas. For example, whilst our additional analysis of the YouGov data has found that the findings from consumers in non-dispute situations do not significantly vary by demographics (such as age, sex, disability, or whether they lived in a rural or urban community) this may not be true when accessing legal services in a conflict situation.
Our research also undertook initial exploration of how confident consumers in Scotland are in relation to legal issues and their perception of how accessible justice is. Using internationally approved standardised measures of legal confidence and accessibility the survey of consumers found that just over a third (37%) of respondents have low levels of legal confidence.[8] This means a significant minority of respondents are not confident they could personally achieve a positive outcome in certain common legal scenarios. In addition, YouGov‘s survey found 24% of respondents have a low accessibility of justice score indicating they think the justice system is not particularly accessible.[9] The levels of legal confidence and accessibility are similar to the levels found in the most recent (2024) survey results from England and Wales (38% and 23% respectively).[10]
Legal capability and accessibility are about much more, however, than access to legal services and they have broader relevance to consumers across a whole range of markets.[11] It includes consumers understanding what their rights and responsibilities are, having confidence in their ability to fairly resolve their problems, trusting legal professionals and the legal system and - increasingly - having the digital capability to complete certain activities. It also includes access to advice and alternative dispute systems and the need to develop a culture within organisations that welcomes complaints and takes complaints seriously in the first place.
Consumer Scotland is also keen to understand how well legal services meet the needs of consumers in vulnerable circumstances. Anyone using legal services can be considered inherently vulnerable primarily due to the situation that prompts their legal need, but also due to the way the legal services market works.[12] The technical nature of legal disputes and complex and inaccessible language, as well as the imbalances in power between consumers, the other party in a dispute and lawyers can be a problem for any consumer. When combined with low levels of legal confidence and concerns about the accessibility of justice, it becomes clear why we need consumer research to understand experiences and a strong consumer voice to influence policy and practice.
Concluding thoughts
Since initial proposals for regulatory reform were made, back in 2018[13], it has been recognised that there was a lack of research exploring the experience of consumers in Scotland in relation to legal services. Publishing this research is a first step in developing an evidence base on this important market. While the findings reflect a fairly narrow type of legal services we believe that the legal profession, policy makers and other consumer groups will find the findings useful and have published the data tables so they can access and use the underlying data.
Our research highlights some areas which could usefully be explored and where reforms should be prioritised to improve outcomes for consumers. The Bill provides an opportunity to improve the transparency of our regulatory systems, helping to boost consumer confidence. It also aims to make complaints processes simpler and more consumer-friendly, which may help consumers to understand and exercise their rights. Improvements in these areas will help consumers across a range of markets, given the important role that legal services play in helping consumers resolve disputes and obtain redress. Access to justice is likely to be an issue in many consumer markets and it is the broader question around accessibility that Consumer Scotland is likely to focus on in the coming years.
Endnotes
[1] Consumer Scotland (2024)Using Legal Services in Scotland
[2] YouGov (2024) Consumer Scotland: Understanding and Experience of Using Legal Services
[3] All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size of the nationally representative sample was 1013 Scottish adults, fieldwork was undertaken between 21st September – 3rd October 2023. The second survey is based on 1504 Scottish adults who have used legal services in the last two years. Fieldwork was undertaken between 23rd October - 14th November 2023. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted.
[4] Note that the figures reported here are percentages of those who have used legal services. The figures used in the following passage in YouGov report are percentages of the full sample: "Three in ten (31%) have used legal services in the last two years, most commonly to do with conveyancing (11%), power of attorney (7%), or will writing (7%).”
[5] Legal Services Consumer Panel ( 2023) Tracker Survey 2023: How consumers use legal services
[6] Ofcom (2024) Best and worst telecoms customer service revealed. Note that while this report was published in 2024 the data is based on how companies performed up to January 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic.
[7] Ofgem (2024) Energy Consumer Satisfaction Survey: August to September 2023
[8] Pleasence, P. and Balmer, N. (2018) Legal confidence and Attitudes to Law: Developing standardised measures of legal capability. Cambridge PPSR.
[9] The score applies to the civil justice system only.
[10] YouGov (2024) Legal Needs of Individuals in England and Wales: Summary report 2024 for the Legal Services Board and The Law Society. p.5.
[11] Unsurprisingly, considering the nature of legal services used in the YouGov survey, three quarters of the respondents had used a solicitor. However, the survey also identified the broad range of other organisations who provide legal advice the most common of which was Citizen Advice Bureaux (5%) but included Trade Unions and professional bodies (2%), Council Advice Services (2%), insurance companies (2%) and national and local charities (1%).
[12] Community Research (2022) Vulnerability in Legal Services: Report for the Legal Services Board.
[13] Roberton E. (2018) Fit for the Future: Report of the Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation in Scotland