According to your recent front page, there are fears about thousands of firms carrying out 'insurance mediation' activities while not registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) (see [2005] Gazette, 28 April, 1). The suggestion is that it is all down to these dreadful firms neglecting their duty to register.

When I received my application for a practising certificate last year, the Law Society sent me form RF3. Much later, I learned that I should have ticked a box about insurance mediation - except that the box was on a form RF1, which I did not receive.


I rushed to telephone the Law Society. I was told that sole practitioners (such as me) were not generally sent form RF1, which contained the insurance mediation question, but were sent form RF3, which did not. That sounds like most of the sole practitioners did not get the proper form.


I received a nice letter of apology from the quality officer of the Law Society. But I am still a bit worried. If the Society did not send out the right forms to everybody in the first place, can we be confident that it has written to all firms still not on the register?


Not altogether off the point, in the same Gazette we are told that we are looking forward to 'a new Society' and we are asked what we want from our professional body (see [2005] Gazette, 28 April, 18) .


Well, the first thing we want is truth. We want to be able to trust that our interests are being protected. We are told there will be a division between regulatory and non-regulatory functions. The notion of 'representation' seems to be singularly lacking in the current spin emanating from Chancery Lane.


Janis Purdy, Bristol





Law Society response:


The information required for FSA registration was requested on practising certificate renewal form RF1 for all organisations recorded on the Law Society's database. This included 4,307 sole practitioners, the majority of whom received the RF1 application form.


Out of these, 857 chose to renew using the individual renewal form RF3, on which regrettably the Law Society had failed to include the insurance mediation question.


Realising the omission on the RF3 form, the Society has kept the interests of all firms concerned central in this matter.


To rectify the situation, the Law Society automatically entered all firms on to the FSA's exempt professional firms register to ensure their interests were represented and protected. Additionally, the Society contacted 10,000 firms asking them to nominate their FSA compliance officer to ensure registration and emphasised the importance of compliance with the regulations and also the implications for those that did not. The Law Society publicised the requirements to register extensively in the Gazette and on the Society's Web site.


The Law Society apologies for the inconvenience this omission has caused and confirms that the question will be included on form RF3 for 2005/06.


Angela Hunter, head of registration, the Law Society, Redditch