ACSeS president challenges SRA over pc fee "myth"

The President of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (ACSeS) has attacked the “myth” that changes to practising certificate fees will result in an increased fee burden of 15% on private practice.

Responding to an article by the chairman of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Charles Plant, in the Law Society Gazette, Mirza Ahmad praised the SRA for its “brave” decision to introduce a 40/60 split of the pc fee between individuals and firms.

But Ahmad, Director of Corporate Governance at Birmingham City Council, argued that comments about an increased fee burden for private practice serve “only to highlight the injustice of the current system and is the equivalent of ‘half full or half empty’ thinking".

He said: “It totally ignores, for example, the fact that public funds from local government have been feather bedding the legal profession and the legal regulator for many years. Such a position has never been fair, proportionate or sustainable in the public interest as the alleged ‘15% burden’ should never have been paid by taxpayers.”

The ACSeS president repeated his call for the split to be 20/80 between individuals and firms, “especially when one realises that solicitors employed in central government continue to benefit from a statutory exemption and pay less than the proposed fees for local government”.