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15 February 2013 / Antony Townsend
Issue: 7548 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Antony Townsend responds to criticism of the SRA’s approach to regulation

Ronnie Fox’s colourful perspective on the requirements of regulation paints a picture of a legal profession suffocating under a blanket of red tape and bureaucracy (“Under pressure”). The burden of regulation (not just from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)) is a real issue for legal services; but his caricature of outcomes-focused regulation (OFR) is neither accurate nor does it reflect the emerging evidence on the views of the profession.

Outcomes-focused regulation

OFR was launched on 6 October 2011. It is designed to replace traditional “tick-box” regulation with a new risk-based approach, allowing firms to achieve the right outcomes by delivering legal services in a way which best suits their individual clients and meets the public interest. The old Code of Conduct was 290 pages; the new one is 36 pages.

Ronnie suggests that the new approach leaves the profession to cope with uncertainty, and contrasts this with the supposed certainty of the old Code. It is true that OFR

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