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The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) has launched a consultation on a new three-year strategy to transform the Legal Ombudsman (LeO), as demand for its service is forecast to have doubled in just three years.
The draft Strategy for 2027-30, published alongside LeO’s draft Business Plan and Budget for 2027/28, sets out plans to create a more proportionate and digitally-enabled ombudsman service, capable of responding sustainably to increasing demand. New complaints to LeO increased by 37% in 2025/26 and are forecast to rise by a further 26% in 2026/27. LeO expects to receive more than 21,000 new complaints in 2027/28, up from 10,447 in 2024/25, a doubling in the level of demand for its service.
Key points
- New complaints to LeO rose 37% in 2025/26 and are forecast to rise a further 26% in 2026/27.
- LeO’s current operating model is capable of resolving 15,000 to 15,500 complaints each year.
- The proposed operating budget for 2027/28 is £22.8 million, an increase of 6.9% on 2026/27.
- By the end of 2027/28, LeO expects more than 70% of cases to be resolved within six months, and more than 80% within a year.
- The consultation closes at midday on 23 December 2026.
The strategic objectives
LeO’s current operating model, capable of resolving 15,000 to 15,500 complaints each year, cannot sustainably meet rising demand simply by scaling up, the OLC said. The new strategy therefore sets three proposed strategic objectives: maximising LeO’s insights, expertise and tools to help strengthen trust and confidence in legal services; improving user experiences through fair, timely and proportionate complaint resolution; and creating an ombudsman service fit for the future. Together these will see LeO seek to resolve complaints earlier and more proportionately, make greater use of complaints data and insight to support improvements across legal services, and work with providers and regulators to address preventable causes of complaints before they reach the Ombudsman.
What the leaders said
Ric Blakeway, Chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, said the Legal Ombudsman “has made significant progress and is resolving more complaints than ever before” but that “demand is increasing at a rate that operational improvements alone cannot sustainably address.” He said “the answer cannot simply be to make the existing service bigger” and that LeO needs to “change the way LeO works, while making much better use of what complaints can tell us about where services and complaint handling need to improve.”
Phil Cain, Chief Ombudsman at the Legal Ombudsman, said transformation for LeO “is not about processing ever-increasing numbers of complaints through the same system” but about “building a better and more sustainable service, while doing more with the insight that comes from the thousands of complaints we see.” He said LeO wants to “help providers resolve more problems themselves” and acknowledged that “demand will continue to exceed the number of complaints we can resolve during this transition,” adding: “We want to be transparent about that challenge.”
Next steps
Plans for the first year of the strategy include beginning the transition to a redesigned service while continuing to improve LeO’s current performance. The draft Strategy and Business Plan also outline plans to strengthen LeO’s learning and insight work, including greater use of complaints data to identify root causes and emerging risks and closer intelligence-sharing with regulators to further support service providers improve their own complaint handling.
The OLC is inviting stakeholders to help shape the final strategy and business plan by sharing their views on the proposals and priorities for the years ahead. The consultation closes at midday on 23 December 2026. The final Strategy 2027-30 and Business Plan and Budget 2027/28 will be published in spring 2027, following consideration by the Legal Services Board.