SRA: Record number of concerns reported
The amount of money spent by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on investigations and enforcement has spiralled by 61% over six years, new figures have shown.
The six most expensive prosecutions taken in the most recent year cost the regulator just shy of £1m but only led to costs awards of just over £300,000 – in three of the cases, it received nothing.
The SRA yesterday published a series of annual reports [1] on its operations for the year to 31 October 2024 – it has previously said it would try to speed up their release but in fact has been a month slower than last time [2].
The figures show that it spent £23.4m on investigation and enforcement in 2023-24, compared to £19.3m the year before and £14.5m in 2017-18.
This has reflected more regulatory action, with records numbers of warnings issued (412, up from 217 the year before and just 10 in 2017-18) and financial penalties (155, up from 77 the year before and 46 in 2017-18). The fines were worth £1.3m – the money goes to HM Treasury.
At the same time, the number of cases going to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has fallen, almost certainly as a result of the summer 2022 increase [3] in the SRA’s fining power from £2,000 to £25,000.
There were just 78 cases concluded at the SDT in 2023-24, compared to 99 the year before and 134 in 2017-18.
The most expensive of the six £100,000-plus cases was that of Simon James Price, whose prosecution the SDT considered improperly brought [4]. It awarded him costs of £184,000, while the SRA’s own costs were £76,500.
The regulator shut down 59 firms in the year, six fewer than in 2022-23 but still significant more than in previous years. The SRA Compensation Fund paid out £28m over the 12 months, with £2m the largest single payment made. As in recent years, probate was the main cause of fund payouts
In all, 11,852 ‘concerns’ were reported to the SRA in the year, the highest for seven years, of which 70% were closed with no further action. However, the SRA’s open caseload as at 31 October 2024 was 1,596, the lowest for seven years.
More than half of concerns (56%) were reported by the public, while a quarter came from the profession.
As in previous years, ethnic minority solicitors and men were overrepresented compared with the practising population in concerns reported to the SRA and at the next stage, when the SRA decides which cases to investigate.
Research published by the SRA [5] in November 2024 contradicted the view that bias amongst clients in part explained this. Rather, there was a range of “overlapping factors that together generate patterns of overrepresentation”, it said.
“Ethnicity is a key factor in explanations, but most importantly it interacts with other factors including gender, age, organisational contexts, such as size of firms, and types of work that increase the likelihood of a report being made to the SRA.”
Other statistics of interest from the various reports for 2023-24 included:
- There were 356 new law firms authorised, compared to 321 and 407 in the previous two years;
- A record 6,611 organisations were authorised to provide a period of recognised training to would-be solicitors, a 15% increase over six years;
- The number of new solicitor apprenticeships was 1,350, 73% more than the previous year;
The age of the reports do not reflect subsequent events, such as the number of law firms dipping below 9,000 [6] last year.