Council Meeting of 20th February 2025

Chair’s Report from Dame Janet Paraskeva

At our first of the quarterly formal Council meetings of 2025, we were able to reflect on the year just past and note the progress made against the business plan . As well as looking at policy issues, we  reviewed the performance of the organisation in the previous quarter, an opportunity to reflect on the successful performance of  the executive team which continues to deliver CLC’s wide range of work to protect consumers within the tightly controlled budget that is funded by the regulated community.

We also looked to the year ahead at this meeting and the business plan and budget for 2025 were agreed by the Council. That plan includes work to spread the benefits of specialist regulation of conveyancing and probate to a larger group of practices and their clients. This kind of growth could also deliver economies of scale to the CLC’s operation over time to make more efficient use of resources. 

Looking at our engagement with the regulated community, stakeholders in conveyancing and consumers of legal services, it was pleasing to see from the annual review of the CLC’s communications that the organisation continues to punch above its weight. We have developed strong channels to potential users of conveyancing services through What Mortgage and First Time Buyer magazines and we use regular columns in those to educate consumers about using legal services. The open rates of our regular email newsletters remain high, reflecting the importance and usefulness of their contents, and their frequency is increasing, reflecting activity across the sector and at the CLC. 

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) is a subject that the Council reviews at each of its quarterly formal meetings. As ever, the report showed a high level of work going on to ensure compliance with the AML regime. This takes the form of monitoring compliance across the regulated community and supporting its work with practical tools and advice.

Finally, the Council reviewed the CLC’s Publication Policy. This is an annual process to ensure that our work is transparent and open to the regulated community and the public to scrutinise and understand.

This year, the changes we made were in relation to the publication of decisions of the independent Adjudication Panel and Enforcement Determination Notices in relation to ABS practices that the executive are able to agree with practices without recourse to the Panel. Previously, these had been published for a minimum of two years. Now, subject to certain exemptions as set out in the Publication Policy, the minimum period will be six years. This recognises the importance of transparency around these disciplinary decisions for the regulated profession and the public to have confidence in the CLC’s work.

It is vital that consumers who may have concerns about a service they received can easily access all the relevant information about the provider of that service for a sufficient period. For that reason, the new minimum publication period is aligned with the six-year period of professional indemnity insurance run-off cover that follows the closure of a practice. 

The Council will meet again in late March to sign off on the Annual Financial Statements, which will be published shortly after that meeting. Our next quarterly meeting will be on 22^nd May, and I look forward to reporting on that.