An attempt by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to gain an accurate picture of the profession’s ethnic breakdown is in peril because nine out of 10 solicitors have failed to respond to a diversity census.

Only 14,000 of the 140,000 individuals emailed a questionnaire in December have responded, the SRA said this week. The SRA said some emails might have got through to out-of-date addresses and that spam filters may have filtered out some emails. In a second phase, questionnaires will be sent by post.

Nwabueze Nwokolo, Law Society Council member for ethnic minorities, said people could not be forced to complete the questionnaire but suggested that it should be sent with the practising certificate renewal application to ensure that it receives attention.

The census is the first of its kind in the profession. The SRA wants the data to help it monitor regulatory processes and procedures and identify trends.

For more information go to www.sra.org.uk/diversitycensus.