The Solicitors Regulation Authority may not be ready to license alternative business structures from the target date of 6 October.

SRA chairman Charles Plant told the regulator’s monthly board meeting today that the authority’s preparations for the change remain on schedule.

The Legal Services Board has accepted the SRA’s licensing application, but the process is subject to parliamentary approval, for which the timetable is not yet confirmed.

There are now doubts within the organisation that licences will be granted in time for ABSs to come into being on October 6.

Justice minister Lord McNally brought the issue up in the House of Lords earlier this month when he called for a ‘sense of urgency’ in taking the matter forward.

In a statement to board members, Plant called for early confirmation from the Ministry of Justice ‘so that those planning to apply to become ABSs can have clarity about the starting date for the new regime’.

The LSB has made it clear that the SRA must be able to consider spent convictions of potential owners and managers of ABSs.

Currently all barristers, solicitors and legal executives are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act Exceptions Order and have to disclose information about spent convictions.

The SRA wants clarity from the MoJ that new entrants will be subject to the same rules.