Two years of being a solicitor for the price of one as SRA goes back to paper
Regulator gives priority to PC renewals as it shelves MySRA for non-practising solicitors
The SRA is abandoning its ill-fated MySRA online renewal system for non-practising solicitors who want to keep their names on the roll, returning to the traditional paper process instead.
MySRA, part of an £18m 'change programme' handled by Tata Consultancy Services, has been plagued with delays.
The deadline for renewing practising certificates online finally expired on 2 March this year, four months after the usual deadline at the end of October 2011. This in turn pushed back the deadline for the nomination of COLPs and COFAs, which expired at the end of last month.
Renewing the roll of solicitors is even further behind. Work should have started in April 2011, but will now begin on 3 September 2012.
After encouraging non-practising solicitors to register with MySRA, the regulator has said it will revert to the old, paper-based system. Now, solicitors will be able to keep their names on the roll for 2011 - when it was not possible to renew - and 2012 for a fee of £20.
'We have made the decision to continue with a paper process for keeping of the roll this year as we are focusing our efforts on delivering an improved online system for PC renewals,' said SRA chief executive Antony Townsend (pictured).
He went on: 'At present, given the current infrastructure, we cannot be sufficiently confident that putting keeping of the roll online would not cause difficulties for those completing the process, and we are determined to avoid this.
'Carrying out further work to make the system stable for keeping of the roll could detract from the significant progress we are making with our suppliers on enhancements for PC renewals and we are not prepared to take this risk.'
A spokesman for the SRA said completed forms and payment for keeping names on the roll must be received by 16 November, otherwise names would be removed.
He added that the last keeping of the roll exercise was carried out in March 2010.
'During this period, solicitors' names have been retained on the roll.'