Costs statement
May 2025
This statement details our costs for the financial year from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2024 in line with the Legal Services Boards (LSB) principles of cost transparency1.
Regulated community
At 31 October 2024 we regulated 178,859 individuals including 171,697 practising solicitors, 7,027 Registered foreign lawyers, 125 Exempt European lawyers and 10 Registered European lawyers2.
This was an increase of 3.5% on the previous year.
We also regulate solicitors' firms. At 31 October 2024 there were 9,147 regulated firms, a reduction from 9,377 at 31 October 2023.
Income and expenditure
We are funded primarily from practising fee income collected from solicitors and law firms, with additional income from regulatory activities such as authorising firms to offer legal services. We also work to recover costs spent on intervening into law firms, taking disciplinary action and administering a Compensation Fund.
| SRA Funding | 2022/23 (£m) | 2023/24 (£m) |
|---|---|---|
| Practising fee income | 60.6 | 68.1 |
| Compensation Fund income | 23.7 | 15.6 |
| Education and training income | 19.2 | 36.6 |
| Other income | 3.6 | 4.7 |
| Grants | 0 | 0.1 |
| Total income | 107.1 | 125.1 |
| Operating expenses | -106.8 | -120.7 |
| Operating surplus | 0.3 | 4.4 |
Full financial statements are available on our website.
Expenditure increased significantly from 2022/23 to 2023/24 as a result of additional costs related to the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, which was offset by increases in income.
Practising Certificate fees 2023/24
53% of the practising certificate fees are retained by the SRA, 28% of fees fund the activities of the Law Society and 19% is collected on behalf of the LSB, LeO, FCA and SDT.
Reserves
- As at 31 October 2024 the SRA had reserves of £23.9m
Staff costs
- Our average number of full-time equivalent staff was 783 during 2023/24 (2022/23: 766).
- Overall staff costs were £47m in 2023/24 (2022/23: £41.6m)
- During 2023/24 our Chief Executive's remuneration was £414.8k (2022/23: £391.6k)
- The Chief Executive's remuneration was 10.1 times the full time equivalent median salary of the workforce which was £41,260
- Salary bands of senior employees (excluding the Chief Executive)
| Salary Band | 2023/24 |
|---|---|
| £230k - £235k | 1 |
| £270k - £275k | 1 |
| £275k - £280k | 1 |
Board costs
- The chair of our Board received emoluments of £105k over the financial year ending 31 October 2024 (2022/23: £90k)
- The total cost of Board member salary costs and expenses in 2023/24 was £354k (2022/23: £256k). The costs are higher than in the previous year due to an increase in Board member remuneration from £12.5k per annum to £18k.
- Annex 1: LSB Cost of Regulation (PDF 15 pages, 442KB)
- Regulated community statistics
- This includes salaries and allowances, bonuses, non-cash benefits and accrued pension benefits in line with HM Treasury financial reporting guidelines