The compulsory levy to fund the Law Society should be dropped, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has said in its response to a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) review of legal services regulation.
The SRA says it now issues alternative business structure licences to accountancy firms, high street consumer brands, and insurance companies, which have “little association” with the Law Society. Therefore, the levy is “unsustainable”. Instead, it proposes a regulatory entity that is independent both of the government and the profession.
In its response to the MoJ review, the Law Society rejected the idea of a single independent regulator. This would be hugely expensive and there was no evidence it would achieve any cost benefits, it said, while the Legal Ombudsman already provides a single access point for consumer complaints.
It argued that the current regulatory system is too expensive, but that “relatively minor changes” could make the system more proportionate.
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