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What your legal services accreditation fee pays for

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ICAEW supports the Legal Services Board’s (LSB’s) commitment to transparency around fees. Our summary explains what the annual accreditation fee covers for firms and authorised individuals offering the reserved legal services of probate and oaths administration and outlines the value and benefits of being accredited by ICAEW.

Overview

We use the annual legal services accreditation fee to support accredited firms, funding activities that help firms meet high professional standards and protect consumers through a proportionate, transparent and forward-looking regulatory approach.

We publish annual monitoring reports on firms offering the reserved legal services of probate and oaths. The financial report provides a high-level expenditure analysis.

Each year c 40% of total expenditure related to staff costs is on the legal services compensation scheme and insurance. ICAEW has 4.2 full-time equivalent employees working in the area of probate and oaths. ICAEW does not have a dedicated ‘legal services department’ and functions related to probate and oaths are carried out by staff across the Professional Standards Department of ICAEW. For example, staff within the Regulatory Practice team not only register and license members and non-members for reserved legal services but also deal with applications for other ICAEW-regulated areas such as audit, insolvency and investment business.

Your accreditation fee funds the following probate and oaths operations:

  • Compensation scheme levy
  • Application and accreditation
  • Policy and education
  • Monitoring
  • Conduct
  • Projects and other support

Compensation scheme levy

We established a Legal Services Compensation Scheme under the requirements of the Legal Services Act 2007. In accordance with Legal Services Compensation Scheme Regulations, an accredited firm must pay the levy as decided by ICAEW. The levy covers the cost of the compensation scheme and provides funds for potential claims.

Application and accreditation

An element of your fee is allocated to two staff members within ICAEW’s Regulatory Practice team for:

  • dealing with general enquiries and providing general support around the application process;
  • processing new applications, including legal services affiliate applications;
  • updating firms’ details for changes;
  • ongoing renewal of fees; and
  • the preparation of reports for the Legal Services Committee.

Policy and education

The Regulatory Policy team is responsible for developing ICAEW’s regulatory policy and engagement with government bodies, oversight regulators and other professional bodies. The team is dedicated to horizon scanning, assisting the ICAEW Regulatory Board (IRB) and Professional Standards Department (PSD) leadership and ensuring that the current and future regulations are fit for purpose.

The team works closely with government, other Reserved Legal Services (RLS) regulators and ICAEW’s oversight bodies to help implement the law.

A portion of accreditation fees is attributed to the work of the policy team who are responsible for areas such as the Legal Services Regulations, applications for new reserved activities, liaison with the LSB and Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Legal Choices team, professional indemnity insurance reviews, CPD Regulations, and understanding and explaining changes in the law and regulatory requirements.

Monitoring

ICAEW’s annual monitoring report provides an overview of the number of accredited firms, the number of monitoring visits we carry out each year, and a high-level summary of the issues found by the Quality Assurance Department (QAD) on its reviews.

A portion of the annual accreditation fee is attributed to the work of QAD that helps preserve the highest professional standards of member firms by monitoring their compliance with applicable laws, regulations and standards and their adherence to the Code of Ethics.

Within QAD, there is a director, senior manager, manager and a team of 10 trained and experienced reviewers that carry out monitoring reviews on a risk-based cycle to our accredited firm population. The work of this department is overseen by the Legal Services Committee, the IRB and the LSB.

QAD helps firms to:

  • establish appropriate systems, controls and procedures; 
  • run their probate practices effectively;
  • identify and address issues;
  • identify and address common pitfalls; and
  • comply with the laws and regulations, standards and codes that apply to them including as related to CPD.

Conduct

Included in your annual fee are external costs to cover the LSB and Office for Legal Complaints. Annual funding of £18k is included in the budget to cover these costs and are therefore a component funded through your accreditation fees.

Internally, the Conduct Department is responsible for ICAEW’s investigation and disciplinary functions. Staff within this department investigate all complaints, including any in relation to firms accredited for reserved legal services. If a complaint is found proved, a range of disciplinary sanctions is possible. You can find further details at: Guidance on Sanctions and fixed penalty process

Your fees also fund the operation of a dedicated and formally appointed Legal Services Committee. The Legal Services Committee is ultimately responsible for ICAEW’s legal services regulatory tasks including applications, licensing and monitoring, together with appropriate regulatory enforcement measures. This committee meets up to six times a year. Committee members including the chair are able to claim a meeting attendance fee.

Projects and other support

A part of your fee also gets allocated against other projects in relation to ICAEW’s probate and oaths operations. Such initiatives are largely driven by our existing team staff costs and an expected cost of operations each year. These innovative initiatives and improvement activities do not stop, they are a core component of what we do.

The Business Support team is a central department which produces the operational plan and supports the work of all Professional Standards staff. This includes a finance function and projects team.

The finance team members look after credit control, budgets and forecasts. They also manage the annual regulatory fee, levy and conduct-related fines payment collection.

The projects team members ensure that we continuously improve as a regulator to maintain, develop and support high standards of practice across our accredited firm population.

There are four staff members who help with a range of communications and information shared with our legal services firms, including facilitating webinars and publishing content on LinkedIn and our website such as our probate and oaths support pages.

With the help of all the departments, projects and initiatives such as diversity data collection and reporting are areas that your fee helps to keep us, as your regulator, at the fore of regulatory requirements and best practice guidance.

Other support includes articles and webinars on:

These initiatives add value to the accredited population and provide additional tools for you to service your clients.

Our website content is regularly updated. You can find more information on our web pages.

Support for firms – at a glance

  • Ongoing regulatory guidance, monitoring and feedback, with access to content experts, to support compliance and protect public interest
  • Development of resources, regular communications, training and CPD opportunities to stay current, including the opportunity to join a reference group for legal services
  • Consumer-facing materials, along with marketing support to grow client relationships

Fee and levy consultation

We consult each year on fee and levy levels in the summer. All such communications and input are signposted to you in Probate News, Regulation and Conduct News and via our dedicated Regulation and Conduct LinkedIn channel.