The Solicitors Regulation Authority has again refused to reveal the pass rates of individual law schools after the Gazette submitted an information request under its ‘transparency code’.

The SRA said it could not reveal details about individual training providers because the information is ‘exempt from disclosure under our code’. It claimed revealing the ‘personal data’ would breach data protection legislation and ‘place inappropriate pressures on providers in a highly competitive, commercial market’. The SRA is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act but has adopted a voluntary ‘transparency code’.

Earlier this year an SRA report found huge discrepancies in law school pass rates, with the proportion of students successfully completing the Legal Practice Course and the law conversion course ranging from 29% to 100%. However it declined to name the institutions behind the figures.

In response to the Gazette’s formal request for information, the SRA said: ‘While we accept that there is some public interest in disclosure of the requested information, as this could potentially be useful for prospective students, we have concluded that there is a stronger public interest in upholding the limitation and withholding the information.

‘The training providers all set and mark their own LPC and [law conversion course] examinations and to be meaningful the information requires significant context. Disclosure of this information would place inappropriate pressures on providers in a highly competitive, commercial market.’