The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is restructuring to prepare for the new regulatory regime, with the loss of 79 jobs.
Around 200 jobs had been identified as being “at risk” because they wouldn’t exist in their present form following the restructure. Staffing levels will reduce from 640 to 560, with some short-term contracts coming to an end, some “natural wastage” and some redundancies. Staff will be retrained and redeployed where possible. While savings are likely to result, it was the new regulatory regime and not cost-cutting that was behind the change, they said.
The restructure will prepare the SRA for the introduction of outcomesfocused regulation and the licensing of Alternative Business Structures from6 October 2011. Th e SRA is moving away from the old style of “box-ticking” regulation to a broader, more principles-based style. Antony Townsend, SRA chief executive, says: “A combination of retrained staff , the targeted appointment of new staff members with new skills, and the replacement of our old and ineffi cient IT systems, will enable us to deliver eff ective and efficient regulation with a lower cost base than before, to the timetable to which we are committed.”
