Your regulator continues to accept criticism with all the humility of a toddler denying they drew on the walls while holding a crayon.
The latest attempt at deflection took hubris and double-speak to new levels, as journalists this week pressed leaders for a response to the Legal Services Board’s damning report on the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Readers may recall that in March, the LSB expressed ‘serious concerns’ about the SRA’s effectiveness and said delivery was ‘insufficient’ on authorisation, supervision and enforcement.
At this week’s press briefing, chief executive Paul Philip appeared unconcerned that the organisation he has led for more than a decade had failed its MOT, dismissing the LSB analysis as ‘90% about Axiom Ince’.
‘There is not a huge amount new in [the LSB report], they repeated a lot of stuff from the Axiom Ince event,’ deadbatted the soon-to-be-gone supremo.
Chair Anna Bradley gnomically offered this: ‘We are taking it seriously but we don’t think it raises significant new issues.’
‘Je ne regrette rien.’
The SRA’s dismissal of the LSB findings as mostly related to Axiom Ince is revealing, given that the regulator has previously stated it wasn’t at fault. Obiter wonders if the passengers on board the Titanic might have been reassured to know the post-voyage report found the iceberg was 90% to blame.
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