The Solicitors Regulation Authority gets its share of stick in the Gazette. So it is gratifying to be able to offer a word of praise for the much-maligned watchdog.
An announcement that the SRA appears poised to reverse-ferret (a journalistic term, m’lud) on the future of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund is welcome news indeed. Establishment of a new SRA consumer-protection arrangement will continue to safeguard against long-tail claims.
In all probability.
‘The Cube’ has finally got to the right answer, after much prodding from the Law Society, Sole Practitioners Group and others. (An honourable mention here for the SPG’s Clive Sutton, a doughty and outspoken SIF advocate who has kept up the pressure.)
What is also interesting is the timescale for feedback. Barely four weeks, in August. An optimist might infer that September’s SRA board meeting will not take long to agree to the retention of some form of protection scheme yet to be finalised. I’d like to tell you that the Gazette will report back in the public interest on the board’s deliberations, but we remain barred from SRA board meetings.
One does need to ask, nevertheless, why this arcane saga has taken so long to reach a conclusion, at what must have been – and will continue to be for some while yet – a substantial residual cost to the profession.
Our new story alluded to a ‘decade of prevarication’, but there is an even longer tale (sic) here. The fund has been run as an interim measure since 2000, first by the Law Society and then by the SRA, on the assumption that commercial insurers would eventually step in. It has long been clear that was never going to happen. The market does not always provide – though to acknowledge that much still goes against the ideological grain among regulators.
Nor will the number-crunchers engaged to come up with a definitive answer have come cheap. Practitioners will be pleased that this time, the SRA cites in explanation of its U-turn ‘other available evidence about potential consumer detriment’ that has come to light since the 2021/22 consultation. That is convenient.
But I am quibbling. Better late than never.
No comments yet