The SRA wants solicitors to pay more for regulation.
The regulator has opened a consultation on its draft business plan and budget for 2026/27. It wants £111.5 million in overall funding. That is £25 million more than last year, a 29% rise. For individual solicitors, the SRA share of the practising certificate fee would go from £190 to £240.
That fee is the annual charge solicitors pay to stay on the roll and keep practising. Firms also pay for regulation in less visible ways: compliance staff, insurance, reporting, file reviews, supervision visits and hours spent proving what most decent firms are already trying to do. A £50 rise will not break the profession but it will still irritate a lot of people and especially in a market already asking whether the regulator has been sharp enough when firms get into trouble.
The SRA presents the increase as a reset. It says the extra money is needed for people, systems, transformation work and restoring confidence. See for example our article on the SRA’s plans to expand it’s Operative Leadership Team here. The regulator has faced heavy criticism after firm collapses and client money failures and asking solicitors to fund reform after those failures was never going to be an easy sell. It has the feel of being charged for repairs to a building someone else drove into!
The compensation fund is contributing to the pressure. The SRA says the sudden closure of PM Law in February 2026 has caused a sharp rise in claims, with applications above £20 million by April. The fund pays clients who lose money through dishonesty or failure by regulated firms. It is vital to public trust, but it is paid for by the profession. Good firms and solicitors end up carrying the cost of the worst failures.
The proposal has also brought the client account in to question. Law firms have long held client money because transactions often need it but it can also create serious risk when controls are weak. Recent collapses of firms with client monies on account have made the problem harder to ignore. If the SRA spends more without reducing the danger around client money, firms will ask whether they are buying reform or just a bigger version of the same system.
A regulator with poor data, old systems and stretched supervision will not protect the public well. The question is whether this money will produce faster, sharper regulation, or simply more process.
Solicitors may accept paying more for stronger regulation but they will be less forgiving if the bill goes up with little to show for it.
Author: TOF
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