The Law Society’s Council last week ‘reluctantly’ voted to increase the practising certificate (PC) fee by nearly a fifth.

The 2010 fee will be £1,180, up from £995. The full contribution to the Compensation Fund will rise from £150 to £390.

In the debate prior to the vote, David McIntosh, member for the City of London, said the increase would ‘bear down intolerably’ on high street legal aid firms, and have a huge impact on the large City firms who pay for thousands of practising certificates.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said the increase was mainly due to capital spending on the Solicitors ­Regulation Authority IT project, a likely fall in the number of PC holders, and the setup costs of the Legal Services Board and the Office for Legal Complaints. He stressed that ‘not one penny’ of the rise was due to increased spending by Chancery Lane itself.

Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said the Law Society’s own budget would be frozen for 2010 and the share of its income from the PC fee would fall from £326 to £256, while the amount going to the SRA would rise from £325 to £492 and the LCS’s share would increase from £251 to £281.

The regulators defended their costs, saying effective regulation required investment from the profession, but they were working to control their budgets despite an increase in demand. They said they were conscious that the profession was facing difficult economic times and they needed to provide value for money.