GLD Vacancies

Legal Services Board approves £428 PC fee

The cost of a practising certificate for local government solicitors in 2010/11 will be £428 after the Legal Services Board this week approved the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s new fee policy.

The policy introduces a combination of individual and firm fees for the first time, which has been brought in ahead of the advent of firm-based regulation. Reduced fees will be payable for those on maternity leave.

The SRA said its objectives were to:

  • Achieve greater fairness for all in meeting the cost of regulation from 2010 (but not to increase revenues from fees)
  • Make the fee structure more logical and spread the costs more fairly over the various sectors of the profession (i.e. between in-house and private practice)
  • Make the fee structure more compatible with alternative business structures when they are permitted from 2011
  • Meet the SRA’s strategic objective to ensure that its policies and regulations are fair and that they are not directly or unjustifiably indirectly discriminatory.

The net total funding requirement for 2010/11 has been set at £121.7m, down from £122.2m.

The SRA will also collect approximately £2.1m as a contribution to the Compensation Fund. A flat fee of £10 is payable by each individual solicitor irrespective of whether they hold client money, although there is a statutory exemption for the Crown Prosecution Service.

The new arrangements include a transitional fee moderation process for firms that will see a considerable increase in the first year of the new fee structure.

A spokesman for the SRA told Local Government Lawyer recently that local authority solicitors were, and in general would continue to be, regulated only as individuals. Legal departments are not recognised bodies, so there will be no "firm" against which a firm-based fee can be levied, he said.

He added: "Whether or not in future a local authority will need to be licensed as an alternative business structure depends on a number of as yet unresolved questions about certain provisions in the Legal Services Act 2007, particularly whether the local authority is proposing to provide a reserved legal service to the public or a section of the public. If a local authority has to be licensed as an alternative business structure, it will have to pay a 'firm' fee."