Sweeping reforms to the practising certificate fee that will ‘shift the fee burden onto private practice’ were published for consultation this week.

The changes would benefit solicitors in local government, commerce and industry and the Crown Prosecution Service at the expense of those working in private practice.

In a joint consultation document, the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) put forward proposals to achieve ‘greater fairness for all’ in meeting the costs of regulation in 2010.

The paper suggests that the practising certificate fee should be split into two elements, one payable by individual solicitors and one ‘firm-based fee’ to be paid by law firms or legal disciplinary partnerships. This latter fee would not be charged to solicitors outside private practice. Sole practitioners would pay both the individual fee and the firm fee.

The consultation puts forward several models for assessing what the firm levy should be. The option favoured by the SRA would be to charge firms a proportion of their turnover. Firms would be put into different bands on a tapered scale, so that the higher the firm’s turnover, the lower the percentage they would pay in fees. However, the paper also seeks views on whether the number of fee-earners should also be factored into the fee.

The biggest losers under the new regime would be firms which have a high number of non-solicitor fee-earners, such as bulk conveyancing or personal injury practices. These firms currently pay comparatively little for regulation because the practising certificate fee is only paid by their qualified staff; a situation described as ‘unfair’ in the ­document.

The paper also considers options for changing the system of compensation fund contributions. However, it proposes retaining the current regime whereby all members of the profession – including employed solicitors who do not hold client money – contribute to the fund.

The new fee structure will come into force from 2010, possibly over a three-year period. It will be used to fund much of the costs of the SRA, the Law Society, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, the Office for Legal Complaints and the Legal Services Board.

The Law Society said it had not yet decided which of the detailed options it would recommend to the SRA.

The paper can be found at www.sra.org.uk/consultations.