Philip: Thinking about retirement for some years
The retirement of Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) chief executive Paul Philip has nothing to do with the Axiom Ince scandal, he emphasised yesterday.
Mr Philip said the decision, announced last month, was taken in conjunction with board chair Anna Bradley to ensure that they did not both leave the SRA at the same time.
The regulator’s board decided last year extend Ms Bradley’s six-year tenure – due to end on 31 December 2024 – by two years because it was “not a steady state period for the SRA”.
Mr Philip told a media briefing yesterday they decided that rather than have Ms Bradley leave at the end of her term and he help a new chair bed in, “it would probably be better for Anna to stay on for a period longer because I was always half-thinking to go around the end of this year”.
He will leave towards the end of 2025 once a replacement has been hired.
Mr Philip continued: “It’s not been a sudden decision; it’s been in my mind for quite a number of years but actually the first half of last year it became clear that there was a good time to go.
“We come to the end of our [three-year] strategy at the end of next year and it’s really important in the third year to start thinking about the next strategy, and that the new chief executive is in place to do that. So it just seemed like the right time to make the announcement.”
He stressed that Axiom Ince “is definitely not the reason why I’ve decided at this point in time to step down”.
Ms Bradley said the statement about not being in a steady state was a reference to the need for one of them to stay on.
“You don’t make a decision to retire on the turn of a sixpence,” she said. “It’s the kind of decision that takes quite a long time for a person to get their head around. We were clear that one of us needed to stay and at that point it was clear that it was going to have to be me.”
His announcement came just before the sudden resignation of Legal Services Board chairman Alan Kershaw less than halfway through his term for personal reasons, while yesterday the chair of the Bar Standards Board, Kathryn Stone, announced that she too would be standing down early.
Her four-year term began on 1 September 2022 but she has been appointed to the role of HM Inspector of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Authorities, which she will assume in the summer.
Ms Stone, who first joined as an ordinary board member on 1 January 2018, said: “It has been a privilege to serve as chair of the Bar Standards Board, working in collaboration with the profession and other legal services regulators to ensure that the Bar is regulated in the public interest.
“The work of the BSB by its diverse staff is vital to promote high standards, equality and access to justice. As I reflect on my time here, I do so with an increased respect for the profession and the role of its regulator.”
Vice-chair Andrew Mitchell KC commented: “I am enormously grateful to Kathryn for her hard work and wisdom in leading the Bar Standards Board through a period of considerable activity, challenge and ongoing reform.
“She has deployed a potent mix of approachability and charm, with steely determination and resolve, significantly to advance and protect the public interest and the interests of consumers. The board will miss her greatly.”
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