Davies: Unreserved apology
A high-profile licensed conveyancer has been thrown out of the profession for not telling 302 apprentices and students that his training academy had lost its official accreditation.
As a result, the work they were doing towards becoming licensed conveyancers and conveyancing technicians was rendered worthless.
Lloyd Davies admitted to an adjudication panel of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) that his actions had been dishonest, lacked integrity and were reckless.
He accepted that permanent disqualification was the appropriate sanction and agreed to pay costs of £175,000.
Mr Davies was the founder and until December managing director of South Wales firm Convey Law, as well as of the charity the Conveyancing Foundation. He remains chief executive of IT company Convey365.
He first qualified as a solicitor in 1995, becoming a licensed conveyancer in 2009. He has served in the past as both deputy chairman and director of the Society of Licensed Conveyancers and as operations director of the Conveyancing Association.
Mr Davies set up The Conveyancing Academy (TCA) in 2014, offering among other courses the Level 6 licensed conveyancer and Level 4 conveyancing technician qualifications under the auspices of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
As well as training up many of its own staff, Convey Law has previously said more than 100 other practices have between them put hundreds of staff through TCA.
In 2021/22, TCA had 19 students on the Level 6 course and 110 on the Level 4, and a further 51 from Cardiff and Vale College enrolled on the two courses, and 122 on a non-CLC Level 3 conveyancing course.
However, on 21 April 2021, TCA was suspended from offering SQA-approved qualifications or advertising itself as an SQA approved centre as the authority was conducting an investigation into exam malpractice.
The investigation followed instances where a senior member of TCA staff had given internal candidates exam papers in advance. In 2023, the CLC revoked the licences issued to two licensed conveyancers as a result.
The SQA told Mr Davies that the meeting at which he was informed about the investigation should not be discussed with others.
On 14 October 2021, following the investigation, the SQA permanently removed TCA’s approval with immediate effect, a decision upheld on appeal two months later and on second appeal in March 2022.
The adjudication panel decision said that TCA continued “to purport to deliver L4 and L6 diplomas” after the suspension and to advertise itself as SQA approved, including when Mr Davies spoke at the Society of Licensed Conveyancers annual conference in November 2021.
As well as continuing to take on new students, TCA sent “learners and employers communications which misleadingly created the impression the learners were still on courses that would lead to CLC qualifications and which failed to inform them that the centre had lost its SQA approval”.
It was generally only when students and employers communicated directly with the SQA, typically many months later when assessments were not returned, that they learned what had happened. Students were able to carry over work that had already been assessed by the SQA to another provider.
Mr Davies also failed to inform the Department of Education about the SQA action, as he was required to under the apprenticeships provider agreement, nor Cardiff and Vale College under its agreement with TCA.
The panel received evidence about the impact. One student wrote: “Alternative providers have confirmed that, as I was never registered as a student, I am unable to transfer my current unmarked assessments. I feel I have wasted two years of my life and [am] now left in complete limbo.
“This has had a real knock-on effect for my employer and I, as it was expected that I would now be qualified and able to handle my own workload; this in turn has significantly impacted on the amount of work we can take on.”
The employer of another student said: “I fail to understand how or why you could inflict such distress, confusion and deception on young apprentices that are wanting to better themselves.
“Our apprentice has wasted two years, much time, effort and personal sacrifice on studying for a qualification she won’t get.”
In mitigation, Mr Davies said the suspension came out of the blue and telling students would have breached the confidentiality obligation to the SQA he believed he was under.
He said he expected the suspension would be lifted “within a reasonable period of time” and so the least disruptive course was for students to progress their studies.
Once the investigation concluded, Mr Davies said, he sought to find alternative solutions for students and has since repaid any funding received after the suspension took effect.
He also offered an “unreserved apology to the students, their employers, the CLC and the profession generally, for the impact that he recognises these matters have had on them”.
Charges against Kathryn Jones, who had been a tutor and learning development manager at TCA, were dropped.
A CLC spokeswoman said Mr Davies’s actions “damaged the education of many trainee licensed conveyancers who were working hard to achieve their ambitions to enter the legal profession”.
She continued: “It brought into disrepute the reputation of the profession of which he was a member and harmed the efforts of so many to increase the numbers of qualified licensed conveyancers.
“It is always regrettable to have to take such action, but we are satisfied with the outcome and grateful to those who stepped forward to assist.”
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