By Jonathan Rayner and Neil Rose


The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has over-charged 36,000 solicitors for their 2006/07 contributions to the Solicitors Compensation Fund, it emerged last week.



And in a bad week for the profession's regulators, the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner has handed down her provisional ruling that the Legal Complaints Service (LCS) and SRA have not delivered their complaints-handling plan for 2006/07. However, she is yet to decide on whether to levy a fine.



The SRA accidentally billed the solicitors for a sum based upon the 2005/06 figures, which were higher than the contribution required for 2006/07. As a result, affected solicitors paid either £100 or £50 too much - or, collectively, an overpayment estimated at about £3 million.



The SRA said that the over-paid money remains untouched and will be returned in full, probably by cheque or by deducting it from next year's contribution.



Chief executive Antony Townsend apologised for the mistake and said: 'We are acting as quickly as possible to rectify the situation in a way which is fair to solicitors and keeps costs down. The matter has been reported to the Law Society's audit committee, which will be supervising a review to see why the mistake occurred and why it was not identified sooner. We will put measures in place to minimise any risk of recurrence.'



Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said: 'We will work with the SRA to ensure that any scheme to put things right is fair and effective. We are grateful to them for acting so promptly once this mistake was spotted and in accelerating a planned root-and-branch review of the compensation fund.'



Meanwhile, writing in this week's Gazette, the commissioner, Zahida Manzoor, said that four of nine timeliness and quality complaints-handling targets have been missed - mainly in relation to quality. 'I welcome the improvements in timeliness, and the effort that has gone into achieving this,' she wrote. 'However, any improvements in timeliness have to be viewed within the context of a poor performance in some of the quality areas...it concerns me that complaints are not being handled in line with the Law Society's own processes.'



Ms Manzoor's comments were directed at the LCS and SRA, because the latter handles conduct complaints, but it is the LCS's performance which is mainly at issue.



Professor Shamit Saggar, chairman of the LCS board, said: 'We welcome the recognition of the enormous effort that has gone into improving the service this year. We would expect the commissioner to use a balanced scorecard that recognises there has been a substantial and marked improvement, comparable with leading consumer redress organisations, in our performance during the past year, notwithstanding that there remain areas where we need to make further improvements.



'We would also expect the commissioner would recognise that it is less appropriate to fine an organisation that has demonstrated rapid and substantial improvement in the past 12 months and that she would choose to support us in making further improvements during the current plan year.'



Last year, Ms Manzoor levied a £220,000 fine for an initially 'inadequate' 2006/07 plan, but did not fine over the failure to meet targets in the previous year's plan.



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