Unexpected 79 per cent of firms submit diversity data

Four out of five firms have submitted diversity data to the Solicitors Regulation Authority by the 31 January deadline, the regulator has said.

Doubts whether law firms were taking the requirement seriously emerged earlier in the year when only just over one third of firms (3,954) had provided the required information.

By the middle of last week however, numbers had surged to 6,602 - or roughly 65 per cent.

Firms that fail to comply with the requirement are unlikely to meet the wrath of the regulator.

Antony Townsend said at the last SRA board meeting he attended in his capacity as chief executive last month that the regulator would deploy "a proportionate enforcement strategy for non-compliance".

Commenting on today's figures, inclusion director Mehrunnisa Lalani said the SRA's priority in the next few days was to "contact firms that need help entering the data into mySRA".

As to enforcement, she said the regulator would "then be considering the regulatory options for those firms who have not attempted to comply".

"For those firms who have gathered the data, we would just remind them of the need to publish their results annually at some point," she said.

Working towards a more diverse profession is one of the new guiding objectives in the solicitors handbook, enshrined in principle 9, but there are no defined implementation plans.

The SRA, along with other approved regulators, introduced annual diversity data collection as a specific requirement in response to Legal Services Board guidance in July 2011.

Firms were initially asked to compile the first diversity data collection by the end of 2012 but were given an extra year after administrative delays at the SRA.

The SRA is expected to publish its analysis of the data, including the profiles of the firms that have taken part, in early Spring.