Regulators should not be individually accountable to government, SRA chief tells Conservative Party conference

Regulators should not be made individually accountable to the government - but they need a clearer strategic direction, the chair of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has told the Conservative Party conference.

Anna Bradley, chair of the SRA board, was speaking at an SRA-sponsored Institute for Government fringe event entitled 'How can regulators promote growth and protect the public'.

James Wild MP, a member of the Regulatory Reform Group, which wants stronger parliamentary scrutiny for the economy's 90 regulators, told the event that individual checks and balances are important. 'The government should set a clearer strategic direction for some of the regulators,' he said.

Asked if the SRA would welcome this, Bradley replied: 'Absolutely. The government sets policy, creates a sense of direction, and the regulators interpret that. The context in which we operate will change. Adjustments need to be made by both sides. It's a delicate dance between policy makers and regulators... getting that relationship right then allowing the regulators to get on with their job.'

Regulators have the operational capability to deliver trust and confidence - not just important for people using services or those delivering services but also for investors, Bradley said. 'Without the regulatory arrangements we have in the law we would not have the global confidence in the legal system of Great Britain that we have today.' 

However, 'too often regulators get on with the business of regulating what's in front of them today, not thinking about what's coming down the pipeline', Bradley said.

Regulators should be thinking about how regulatory arrangements might need to change in the context of technology advances, she said. 'That's regulatory leadership. That's why the SRA invested in understanding technology, what it might be able to do in the legal sector, what it could do for the legal sector, and how we can help to make some of that happen.'

Bradley said it was not appropriate for regulators to be accountable to government individually. 'We feel ourselves accountable to the profession to explain what we are going to do with the money they have to pay and why sometimes we ask for more. We hold ourselves accountable. We're in a fortunate position.' She was 'more enthusiastic about something that allows oversight of regulatory systems and regulatory policy rather than accountability of individual regulators'.

This article is now closed for comment.