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Re. Anon @ 11.45

The SRA is unlikely to be drawn to comment in public upon its approach to this costs order or any other, but costs in the SDT are at present not as straightforward as most in the profession might think. In practice, the indemnity principle is quietly ignored and the SRA claims the costs of Forensic Investigation Officers and SRA investigators with reference to an “hourly rate”, when they are in fact employees of the SRA and so this does not represent a ‘cost’ to the Regulator on an hourly basis in the amounts claimed. One occasionally sees reference to this in representations by Respondents' representatives in other Judgments. In addition (and particularly relevant to the present case), a curiosity of the arrangement between the SRA and Capsticks is that they operate on a fixed cost basis so the actual cost to the SRA is not the difference between the amount (and hours) claimed and the amount recovered.

The result of all of these synthetic "hourly rates" is that the difference between the £50,120.58 claimed and the £20,000 awarded in this case will not be an actual shortfall left to "the profession" to fill in the amount of £30,120.58.