News from the Board

January's Board meeting not only represented the beginning of a new year, but the start of a new era as it was the first formal Board meeting with our new Chief Executive, Sarah Rapson, at the helm.

Central to our Board discussion this month was how we as an organisation can make sure we are delivering the greatest impact in the public interest

At our two recent Board meetings – in June and last week in Liverpool – a central concern was prioritisation. In other words, what will have the greatest impact when it comes to driving confidence and trust in legal services.

In this board meeting we discussed our forthcoming annual report which shows we have delivered much of what we promised for this first year of our strategy.

This week's Board meeting was a day of workshop sessions focussing on strategy, the big issues in the legal sector, and how we are advancing our mission of driving confidence and trust in legal services.

It's only right I begin with the announcement we made last week that Paul Philip will be retiring as our Chief Executive.

This meeting was focused on reviewing our performance over the last year. There have obviously been some big challenges! Particularly in responding to new and significant events, such as Axiom and SSB, that also reflect changing risks in the sector.

This month's Board was two days of workshop sessions – a chance to focus on strategy, reflecting on where the legal sector is, and what this means for how we regulate.

A key part of our work as a Board is to set the direction for the organisation by maintaining an eye on the future. One of the tools we use to guide us in this work is the strategic risk register, which identifies those things that present a challenge to delivery of our strategy.

This Board meeting reminded us that there is no such thing as steady state regulation. There is always change, whether in the wider world (Brexit, the pandemic, cost of living crisis, or the rapid development of AI) or more locally, in the shape and nature of the legal services market.

This month's Board was in Cardiff. In the evening, the Counsel General, Mick Antoniw joined us and our many guests from consumer groups, charities, government and the profession.

Two years' ago, CILEX formally approached us about redelegating regulation of CILEX members to the SRA. Since then, we have carried out two consultations, and the Board has been scrutinising what this change would mean in practise.

Our strategy establishes a defining purpose for everything we do: driving confidence and trust in legal services. A fundamental part of our role as a Board is having oversight of the SRA's work and making sure it is performing well and delivering against our strategy. The focus of this meeting was the first six months of the new strategy.

Our Board this month was in Exeter, with our discussion focused on education and training.

The SRA's new strategy establishes a defining purpose for everything we do: driving confidence and trust in legal services. This month's Board discussions were focused on just this.

In this month's blog, I wanted to reflect on two in-depth discussions we had about areas that are fundamental to how we regulate: our investigation processes and approach to consumer protection.

The focus of this month's board meeting was in-depth, informal workshops to explore longer term issues for regulation of the legal sector.

One of our most important jobs as a Board is to make sure we have the right strategy. At our meeting, we considered feedback on our new proposed strategy for 2023 – 2026. It was great to see such extensive, rich feedback.