Regulatory Policy Associate

It is an exciting time to join the Legal Services Board as we work in collaboration with the legal services sector to deliver our 10-year strategy. The strategy’s golden thread is the need to reshape legal services to better meet society’s needs. We have identified some big challenges facing the legal services sector that we need to tackle to ensure fairer outcomes, stronger confidence and better services for the public. Among the most important is dismantling barriers to a diverse and inclusive legal profession at all levels.

Legal services are of central importance to consumers, our economy and wider society:

• On average, 7-8m people experience a legal problem every year
• 3 out of 10 small businesses face a legal problem every year
• Estimated annual losses to small businesses due to legal problems is £40bn
• The sector contributes around £37bn to the economy and employs 350k people
• An estimated 1m individuals suffer ill health as a result of legal problems annually.

As the oversight regulator for legal services, we are responsible for ensuring that the legal services market is working well for consumers and the public more widely.

We have a small, focused team of around 19 Policy Managers and Associates who are responsible for leading our policy and regulatory work. This involves:

• Assessing applications from regulators wishing to change their regulatory arrangements and determining whether we should accept – either with or without modification – or refuse the proposed changes.
• Leading longer-term policy projects on issues like ensuring professionals remain competent throughout their careers, improving transparency on price and quality indicators to help consumers to shop around, and taking advantage of developments in technology.
• Acting as relationship managers for the nine frontline regulators, including assessing their performance against our regulatory performance framework.

This post will work as a job share to support our statutory decision-making function in the first instance – we operate a pool of policy resources with individuals allocated to specific work as it arises. This includes assessing applications from frontline regulators wishing to change their regulatory arrangements and determining whether we should accept or refuse the proposed changes in accordance with the Legal Services Act 2007. The statutory decision making function is a small team, delivering a critical statutory function of the LSB at pace with a high level of accuracy and consistency. The successful colleague would have the opportunity to lead on the assessment of applications and write decision notices for public consumption.

Core responsibilities:

• Regulatory: Working with approved regulators considering making applications to the LSB and analysing applications against specified criteria for approval. Supporting our work on assessing the performance of approved regulators, developing action plans for improvement and monitoring progress.
• Policy: Contributing to or leading specific reviews of regulatory and policy issues.
• Evidence: Developing the evidence base to analyse and develop new policy including supporting the management of research.
• Briefing: Drafting policy papers, reports and briefings for a range of audiences.
• Engagement: Working with regulators, senior team, board members and external stakeholders to support and develop regulatory and policy work.
• Project Management: Supporting or leading project management planning and producing associated documentation.
• Enforcement: Supporting enforcement action where appropriate.

Person specification:

Experience

It is likely that you will have a background in one or more of:

• Regulation and/or competition
• Public policy
• Consumer policy
• Economics
• Law or the wider legal services market
• Performance measurement
• Compliance management

Qualities

Essential:

• Ability to maintain and progress own case load, prioritising work to meet conflicting demands, while retaining a high level of accuracy and consistency and ensuring that statutory deadlines are met.
• Ability to review and absorb complex information and evidence to reach sound conclusions at pace.
• Excellent drafting skills with the ability to interpret and present complex policy analysis, consultation documents and draft papers clearly and concisely and which can withstand legal scrutiny.
• Capable of maintaining strong, robust and influential relationships with approved regulators and other stakeholders.
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills with a focus on working positively as part of the job share and LSB team.
• A strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion as both a colleague and regulator.
• Excellent organisational and project management skills including use of MS Office suite.

Desirable:

• Some understanding of legal services market or regulation would be an advantage.
• Previous experience of case management.

Benefits:

21 hours per week with a competitive salary, a defined contribution pension scheme with an employer’s contribution of up to 13% of salary, benefits allowance of 10% which can be taken as salary and an annual leave entitlement of 25 days. The position is open to those who would like to work flexibly.

Salary: Up to £41k per year (pro rata) depending on experience.

Further information:

The LSB has a flexible working policy that enables colleagues to choose whether they want to work from home, the office or a hybrid of both. You can be based anywhere in the UK. The LSB is committed to reducing inequality, valuing diversity and enabling inclusion. We welcome applications from people from all parts of the community.

How to apply:

Please write a cover letter outlining why you want the job and the skills and experience you will bring (based on the person specification) and with your CV send it to recruitment@legalservicesboard.org.uk. Please send your covering letter and CV as one word document (not a separate cover letter and CV) as we anonymise the applications before they go to the shortlisting panel. Please note that applications that do not have a cover letter or CV will not be considered.