Bradley: Hard choices over budget
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is to restart work on improving transparency for consumers, which could see firms having to publish their prices in more areas of law.
It is also looking to develop a tailored approach to the conduct of bulk claims in the wake of high-profile collapses such as SSB Law and Pure Legal.
The moves are part of changes to the regulator’s 2024/25 business plan, which is published today after consultation and outlines how changing priorities in recent months are set to put pressure on its budget of £157m.
This could mean increases in practising fees next year.
The revised plan has been significantly bulked up following the consultation, which was generally positive but received comments – particularly from the Legal Services Consumer Panel – that the SRA should do more to improve the information available for those choosing and using legal services.
The SRA had paused its work on this in the last year because of other priorities, but according to newly published papers that went before the recent SRA board meeting, the results of stakeholder perception research also found transparent cost structures to be “one of the most important drivers” of confidence and trust in legal services.
As a result, the updated business plan says the SRA will now recommence its work on transparency: “This could include reviewing and revising specified formats for information provision, and whether our rules around costs transparency could be extended into other areas of the law.”
A separate paper before the board on consumer engagement said the transparency rules had deliberately focused on more commoditised services – such as conveyancing, wills and probate – and then ensuring compliance, before expanding to more contentious areas.
“As an example, we are cautious of mandating cost information in areas such as family law where the advertised price of services may influence consumers’ decisions to engage a lawyer or not.
“In an area such as this, where the final costs are difficult to establish before discussing the legal issue, firms may be required to advertise broad ranges of costs upfront, and if the consumer assumes they will be charged the top end of this range they may be less likely to proceed, thus creating an access to justice issue.
“For reasons such as this, we need to understand what truly helps consumers in different sectors make informed choices, through evaluation and research projects, rather than rolling out further requirements for information before the likely impacts are known.”
Last month, the Legal Services Board approved rule changes that mean law firms regulated by CILEx Regulation will have to publish price and service information for all legal services, a first for the market.
Speaking to the media yesterday, SRA chief executive Paul Philip said it was possible the SRA could go down this route but that the board had not yet discussed it.
Other changes to the business plan – which was originally drafted at the start of this year – are:
- Taking forward some of the issues emerging from the consumer protection review, consultation on which is due soon;
- Considering “a long-term framework on bulk claims litigation” in the wake of high-profile law firm collapses causing “significant detriment” to consumers; and
- Improve the SRA’s approach to identifying and managing risk, including through better use of data.
SRA chair Anna Bradley told the media briefing accommodating this extra spend within its budget for the year of 2024/25 was likely to mean “some hard choices”.
She explained: “We’ll obviously look at reprioritising, we’ll also look at efficiencies and, if we need to, we will look to the use of some reserves during the course of the year in order to make sure that we are doing what’s necessary during 2025.”
She acknowledged that this may in turn lead to higher fees for the 2025/26 practising year but stressed that it was too early to say this for sure.
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