The Solicitors Regulation Authority will begin the process of revocation in the coming weeks against thousands of solicitors who failed to renew their practising certificate.

Applications closed on 31 October, with a total of 25,185 bulk and single applications submitted in time out of the 29,616 expected based on last year’s figures.

That figure represented around 85% of the renewals expected by the regulator.

Last year, a total of 26,764 bulk and single applications were submitted by the deadline out of an estimated 32,611 – a renewal rate of around 82%.

In September, the SRA promised ‘significant’ changes to reduce the issues experienced in completing the renewals process last year.

Samantha Barrass (pictured), SRA executive director, said she was ‘extremely pleased’ with the process this year.

‘Once again we have enjoyed a relatively trouble-free process, which is testament to the extensive engagement work that we continue to have with the profession.

‘However, we are disappointed with the 15% that hadn’t even started the process, and we will be starting the process of revocation under regulation 10.2 of the SRA Practising Regulations 2011 in the next few weeks.’

She added that those who have not yet applied to renew their practising certificate/registration are strongly urged to do so in order to avoid revocation.