Section 205: Consultation requirements for rules

Legal Services Act 2007 · 2007 c. 29View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 9: General

This section applies in relation to—

rules made by the Board under this Act, and
rules made by the OLC under Part 6,

other than excluded rules.

If the Board or the OLC ("the rule-making body") proposes to make any rules, it must publish a draft of the proposed rules.

The draft must be accompanied by a notice which states that representations about the proposals may be made to the rule-making body within the period specified in the notice.

Before making the rules, the rule-making body must have regard to any representations duly made.

If the rules differ from the draft published under subsection (2) in a way which is, in the opinion of the rule-making body, material, it must publish details of the differences.

The rule-making body must publish any rules it makes, and rules may not take effect before the time they are published.

Subsection (6) does not apply to rules made by the Board under section 37(4), 95(3) or 173.

The rule-making body may make a reasonable charge for providing a person with a copy of—

a draft published under subsection (2), or
rules published under subsection (6).

In this section "excluded rules" means—

rules of procedure made by the Board for the purposes of paragraph 21 of Schedule 1,
rules made by the Board in its capacity as an approved regulator or a licensing authority, and
rules of procedure made by the OLC for the purposes of paragraph 20 of Schedule 15;

and references to making rules include references to modifying the rules and, in relation to any modifications of rules, references to the proposed rules are to be read as references to the proposed modifications.

This section is subject to section 156(3) (which disapplies this section to OLC rules made in response to a Board direction under section 156(1)(b)).

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