Government report on professional services looks at potential problems facing legal regulation

A group of high-profile legal figures including Linklaters senior partner David Cheyne and Simmons & Simmons managing partner Mark Dawkins have questioned the effectiveness of the Law Society as a single regulator.

The issue is one of a number raised in the first – and only – report from the Government's high-level Professional Services Global Competitiveness Group, which is expected to be released later this month.

The group, which also includes Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom European managing partner Bruce Buck and Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham, as well as senior members of the accounting profession, was appointed in September to champion the professional services sector and come up with recommendations to ensure that the UK is not at a competitive disadvantage to other countries.

In addition to reviewing whether the Law Society is effective as a single regulator for the profession – a subject on which it has opted to collaborate with the Law Society – the group has identified a number of other potential problems for the legal sector.

High on the list is the controversial Qualified Lawyer Transfer Regulations (QLTR) – which govern how foreign lawyers qualify into the UK. The regulations, which have been the subject of significant criticism in the past, with many arguing they allow an easy route to qualification and that standards are inconsistent between assessors, have been highlighted as a potentially anti-competitive area.

Other matters the group has investigated include looking at how the country deals with enacting European legislation and bringing UK laws into compliance, with some concerned that the process is too long and unnecessarily complicated.

The country's banking, insolvency and money laundering regulations have also come under scrutiny. Cheyne, who has been central to the discussions, said: "A number of firms had teams of people working on this matter and what we have come up with are actually relatively minor regulatory changes. This is what you would expect as, for the most part, both the professional services industry and the UK as a whole are fairly competitive."