Our fifth Board meeting of the year took place online on Thursday 17 September 2026. The Board minutes will be published on our website in the usual way, but in the meantime, here are a few of the highlights.
Strategic Priorities: the Board considered progress against our priorities for 2026 and agreed proposed activity for 2027. We welcomed good progress against each of the priorities set for this year, in particular noting the nearly 1400 litigation rights that have been granted. But we also recognised, in the light of the Lessons Learned report published in July, that the user experience had not been good enough. On other priorities, we welcomed the improved relations with CILEX, the work underway on improving enforcement, and the efforts to improve stakeholder engagement. We agreed for 2027 three key short-term priorities:
- Rebuilding relationships with CILEX and the regulated community.
- Being more responsive and improving user experience, including publishing service standards.
- Engaging with entities with a view to increasing numbers.
We will now continue to engage with partners before publishing our 2027 Corporate Plan later this year.
Quality Assurance Strategy: we considered how we could reinforce our quality assurance arrangements in order to strengthen assurance that the education standards we oversee continue to be robust, reliable and fit for purpose. We are pleased to see more providers offering CILEX qualifications and agreed some additional arrangements to bolster quality assurance with a view to a public consultation early next year.
AML Supervision: we received our annual report on the effectiveness of our Anti-Money Laundering Supervision. This shows a significant improvement in the maturity of compliance arrangements across CRL firms. In particular we have seen compliance rise from 1 in 5 firms in 2023/4 to 100% in the last year. This reflects a lot of hard work by the regulated community, alongside the Board’s decision to employ a dedicated AML officer and the introduction of onsite inspection visits. We will publish the full report next month.
Practising Certificate Fee: The Board considered the feedback from the consultation on next year’s fee for the Practising Certificate. Key factors that have informed the 2027 budget include the extra costs of responding to the Mazur judgment, our wish to improve user experience, the growing costs imposed on us by the LSB, and the need for significant investment in systems and processes after a long period of uncertainty about our future. Equally we are very conscious of the difficult economic environment facing many in the profession. Following discussion, we agreed to forward a formal application to the LSB.
Next Meeting: Our next Board meeting is on 3 December 2026. If you would like to know more please access our website, read our Board papers or get in touch.
