SRA calls for profession to stump up extra £25m

_{"Please solicitors, can I have £25m more."}

The SRA says it needs an extra £25 million of funds from the profession, partly to plug the hole due to PM Law's closure.

The regulator, with cap in hand, posted its calculations for the financial year 2026/2027 in a draft business plan, stating that it needs to increase its fund by £25 million to create a pot of £111.5 million, a 29% rise from the current year.

To get the extra cash, the regulator has proposed hiking the SRA's portion* of the annual practising certificate fees for solicitors by £50, from £190 to £240. Fees paid by firms, based on their turnover, will also need to rise, said the SRA.

For the compensation fund (awarded to the public who have lost money when firms close), the SRA said that it anticipated that solicitors would have to pay £120 to the fund (up from £70), and that firms would pay £3,600 (a sharp rise from £1,950).

It means that solicitors will have to fork out an extra £100 for the combined payments towards their practising certificate fee and the compensation fund, from £260 to £360.

The SRA cited the closure of PM Law in February this year, as a key reason for the need to pour more money into the compensation fund. It's had a few twists and turns, already. The collapse "led to a significant increase in the value and volume of claims being made to the fund", with the total of current applications currently over £20 million, with further applications still expected.

The SRA also stated there had been "a higher number of interventions into law firms", in 2025/26 so far, compared with 2024/25, which has also resulted in "high levels of storage costs for the documents and files" seized from the firms.

The regulator also highlighted a rise in operational challenges, with the number of misconduct reports increasing by 45% to 16,499. Sarah Rapson, the SRA's Chief Executive said that this impacted "on the time taken to complete investigations and consequently the organisation's ability to meet both the public and the profession's expectations".

Rapson also commented that it wasn't "an easy decision to propose increasing practising certificate fees given the pressures on solicitors and law firms. However, this plan represents a conscious decision to invest in the organisation now, rather than accept the higher risks and costs that would ultimately arise from continuing as normal."

The Law Society president, Mark Evans, said: “A substantial proposed increase is deeply concerning. We support the principle of the Compensation Fund which is a vital protection for consumers and clients. Several failures, including most recently PM Law, have placed considerable strain on the resources of the Compensation Fund and we recognise the need to rebuild the fund’s reserves".

Last year, the Legal Services Board sanctioned the SRA following its failure to prevent the £60m Axiom Ince fiasco. The LSB ordered the SRA to improve how it identifies “risks arising from the corporate structure of law firms and from sales, mergers and acquisitions”. And directed the SRA to strengthen its regulation of client money controls. The LSB also slammed the SRA for failing to investigate SSB.

_{* Other portions of the practising fees go to various bodies, such as the Legal Services Board and Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal etc.}

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Comments

Pay more for the SRA’s repeated serial embarrassing regulatory failures and huge shortcomings and poor quality staff and investigators and general awareness of its regulatory, and other, responsibilities and duties.

This failed Authority and the LSB which is supposed to regulate it have clearly repeatedly failed and both are irreparably broken and need to be wound up and a fresh and independent and more appropriately robust and capable regulatory regimen and schematic be put in place to do the job properly and to restore the confidence of the Public and the Profession in the Solicitors’ Brand.

Nothing less than that will do.

Those responsible for creating this current shambolic position should hang their heads in shame and be barred from ever occupying similar regulatory roles elsewhere or in Government or the Civil Service.

Cool - bargain I would say

Can’t they just fine Wombles & the other Post Office firms £25m?

The rise in the PC fee and comp fund levy can only happen if the Law Society as the Approved Regulator approve the business plan and ask the LSB.

I would therefore recommend that all solicitors
a) Respond to the SRA business plan and consultation https://www.sra.org.uk/news/news/press/bp-2026/

b) canvass their Law Society Council representative https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/about-us/our-governance/council-constituencies-and-current-members (you may be represented by more than one member as there are practice area reps, characteristic reps and geographic reps).

and ask that the TLS formally withhold approval of the business plan and seek reformation of the SRA with the following cost cutting measures

i) SRA to be focussed SOLELY on investigations of firms and individuals with matters su

ii) SRA stripped of its abilities to fine solicitors and firms without reference to the SDT. All such matters referred to SDT to decide

iii) IGRs reformed to allow Law Society ability to properly scrutinise SRA performance and to report on findings

iv) SRA stripped of SQE/ Admittance and Continuing Competence Roles- these be returned to Law Society

We do not need a bloated and inefficient regulator. We need one which is laser focussed on discharging the vital role of investigating dysfunctional firms. The remainder of the functions it seeks to claim are not properly ones that the SRA should be doing in any event.

here is a great article on this subject https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fixing-whose-foundations-how-profession-can-should-challenge-pett-6hcee/

Why exactly are we, once again, being asked to pay for the SRA's gross incompetence? SRA senior management should be sacrificing their own salaries, pensions and bonuses for the s**tshow of a job they did in enabling these accumulator firms to exist in the first place!

Imagine if the SRA actually did its job and prevented these scandals, instead of fluffing things entirely and then expecting the rest of us to pick up the ever-increasing tab for its incompetence.

So they can punish more victims of workplace discrimination for being suicidal and overlook the actual cases of massive frauds they should be going after

but but but.... the SRA has exceptionally important work to do such as investigating a facilities manager at TLT for sending a sex toy to a colleague.

They need to be taking the houses of wrong uns and fining big firms before going into the pockets of the well behaved majority

Can they publish more details of their pay first?

What's the SRA offering the profession in return?

I think we'd all feel better about this proposal if we were getting the resignation of the whole gaggle of incompetent jobsworths who were responsible for this mess in consideration.

Perhaps we could do a sort of live auction in which we all bid to see just how much the profession would pay to sack each one of them? That'd be a nice fun way of bringing us all together over an otherwise difficult issue.

I'd sooner give the money to the people whose lives they've ruined for minor infractions or suicidal thoughts (because they are thought police now).

Its not like they go after the genuine frauds or corruption either way.

It's high time the SRA was put out of its miserable existence.

Let each firm like Capsticks doing the disciplinary work have their cost schedules posted online with full time-and-line displayed.

"the SRA has exceptionally important work to do such as investigating a facilities manager at TLT for sending a sex toy to a colleague."

That's an 'alleged' sex toy, thank you very much.

Can someone please explain what power there is to bring Paul Philip back before Parliament to explain what exactly he knew and what exactly he did and did not do?

After all, he was being paid substantially more than the President of the Supreme Court during his tenure.

You mistyped Crapsticks.

Anon at 09:32 - that seems like a pretty comprehensive and well thought out potential roadmap, which will presumably be ignored by anyone relevant.

13:03

Yes sorry, you are quite right. For all we know, given the SRA’s strange ideas of what is and what is not “inappropriate “, it might have been a complete innocuous object.

I don't understand how they can talk to us about ethics when-

1 Paul Philip failed to resign

2 Paul Philip refused to apologise

3 Anna Bradley failed to resign

4 The rest of the board failed either to resign or sack Paul Philip

5 So far as we can tell no SRA staff have faced disciplinary action for gross negligence in failing to pick up at least Axiom Ince

6 Multiple costs orders have been against the SRA which can only be made, following Baxendale-Walker, in limited circumstances, including "where the proceedings have been improperly brought or so badly conducted as to have amounted to "a shambles from start to finish".

You've had your fun with half baked low cost light touch regulation. It's now time to get serious, and pay for it. Certainly the SRA leadership and strategy has to change, and perhaps the me too culture wars were a distraction, but that's not even close to enough. The profession needs closer, more interventionist regulation or the compensation fund payments will keep piling up.

You are being asked to pay half of what chartered accountants pay with much money at risk in client accounts.

To reduce this to a victimhood olympics for an increase which remains a triflingly small percentage of one of the highest paid professions in the country shows a solipsistic outlook imo. It's not so much about the past as about the future.

GC won’t be happy

How the holy absolute F**K does the SRA justify its own existence in this day and age? A bunch of incompetents who wouldn’t last a second in private practice, now coming cap in hand to ask the rest of us actual lawyers to pay for their monumental failures. You must be embarrassed to be spending your careers there.

Is there a levy on turnover with thresholds etc? CC, Links etc would hardly miss a fraction of a percentage point.

Well, if an old man is going around molesting your little girls and you rant and rave privately about it, he's still going to keep doing it. If the urban youths are holding you up at gunpoint for your wallet, and you oblige, and go home and complain about it, nothing is going to change. You can keep commenting with righteous outrage, but the SRA doesn't care and will keep cashing its cheques. It's like a partner who keeps cheating on you, gaslighting you when confronted and you never break up with them because you're too busy with other matters. Pressure should be directed to the heads of prominent law firms to group together to get the ball rolling. More than capable of organising a pointless seminar on some banal legal update.

15 May 17:42

What’s Gemma Collins got to do with it?!

🤭

THE SRA IS A GR8 ORGANIZATION AND LAWYERS ON HERE UNGRATEFUL BECAUSE THEY DON'T ABIDE BY THE REGULATIONS AND ARE MEAN PENNY PITCHERS. The only reason you don't like the SRA and it's great work is because YOU ARE GUILTY - always the GULTY who talk the talk BUT CAN'T WALK THE WALK. I know SRA well in Birmingham and its great and it treets people well and proper which is why unhappy London lawyers and gropers and misogenies hate it so. The one complaint you coud make about it is while building is nice inside and stuff outside has Jesus Cross things on it - which is NOT welcoming to those other FAITHS, and thats something they need to move - yu cant have cross symbols on things in 2026, and lots of ppl complaining on this, its disgusting to be honest - we have to lead from the front on these issues