The practising certificate (PC) fee may drop £70 to £950 this year after the Law Society's cash requirement was reduced by £4 million, the council was told last week.

Updating the 2006 budget, treasurer Philip Hamer said it had been revised down to £94 million in light of 2005 coming in under budget and bringing forward into 2005 the first of the five annual additional pension fund payments agreed by the council last summer.


In addition, the growth in the number of actual PCs issued last year was stronger than anticipated, so the number predicted for this year has also gone up - to 98,950 full PC fee equivalents.


The final PC fee figure will be set in July and could yet be adversely affected by the demands of the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner in setting the 2006/07 performance targets for the Consumer Complaints Service.


Elsewhere at the council meeting, members agreed that the new Law Society's primary purpose should be 'to act as the collective voice for solicitors and to respond to their needs'.


They supported a paper outlining the future strategic scope and purpose of the Society's representative arm as the basis for the next stage of work to define its services and delivery model, although it will be reviewed in the light of the results of the Have Your Say consultation.


The paper recognised Chancery Lane's unique position to represent and promote solicitors' collective interests nationally and internationally, and act as a resource for them. It said the organisation's core values should ensure it operates in a way that is: progressive, proactive, transparent, accountable, cost-effective, accessible, responsive, and committed to equality and diversity, justice and the rule of law.


Funding should come from a core of mandatory levy, supplemented by commercial or subscription income, members said. They also backed a checklist to ensure that every activity undertaken by the new Law Society is effective and efficient.


Chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'The council has given a clear steer on the scope of the future Law Society that will be tested against the findings of the ongoing consultation of the entire profession. This enables further work to carry on in preparation for the July council meeting that will settle the strategic blueprint for the future.'


The consultation, which closes this month, has so far received 17,000 responses. Ms Paraskeva told council that consultants had hailed this as 'amazing'.