Practising certificate fee to be cut to £350, but compensation fund fee to rise

The indicative cost of an individual practising certificate for 2011/12 will been cut from £428 to £350, but the compensation fund contribution payable by individual solicitors is set to rise from £10 to £60, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) has said.

The changes mean that the actual reduction in fees, due in November this year, for individual solicitors is £28, a cut of 5%. The compensation fund contribution is payable by all solicitors, regardless of whether they handle client money, with the exception of those employed by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The figures still have to be confirmed by the Law Society Council, which meets on 13th July. The SRA said that the final fee policy would be published in early August, but that significant changes from the indicative figures were unlikely.

2011/12 will the second year since the introduction of the 'firm-based' fee, which was intended to relieve employed solicitors of some of the cost of regulation. The firm-based fee is expected to contribute 80% of the cost of regulation in due course, but the rates for this year put the figure closer to 60%, the same as last year.

The full details are available at the following link: http://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/pc-registration-renewal/fees/fee-policy.page