UK Solicitors Angered By SRA Blunder

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

08 June 2007

The UK's Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on Thursday issued an apology, after it emerged that it had overcharged more than 36,000 solicitors with regard to their contributions to the Compensation Fund.

The SRA explained that an administrative error meant that some solicitors were overcharged for the year 2006/7, with some being charged a GBP500 contribution rather than GBP400, whilst others were charged GBP250 rather than GBP200.

However, the error only affected qualified lawyers who were holding client cash in the 12-month period up to October 2006 and applying for their practising certificate for the fourth time or more, according to the Legal Week news service.

"We apologise unreservedly for this mistake and are acting as quickly as possible to rectify the situation in a way which is fair to solicitors and keeps costs down," Antony Townsend, SRA chief executive announced. He continued:

"We are working closely with the representative Law Society to achieve these objectives. The matter has been reported to the Law Society's Audit Committee, who will be supervising a review to see why the mistake occurred and why it was not identified sooner. We will put measures in place to minimise any risk of recurrence."

Details of the plans to rectify the error will be published on the SRA's website and in the Law Gazette as soon as they have been finalised.

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