Pearn Kandola report into issues of disproportionality (July 2010)

Last updated 14 December 2011

Since 2004, monitoring data has shown that BME solicitors are over-represented in regulatory decisions and outcomes. Before the establishment of the SRA, the Law Society's regulatory arm commissioned an initial equality impact assessment (EIA) of its regulatory activities which suggested that there may be a number of factors that could be having an impact on the statistical disparity. These included size of practice and qualification route as possible factors resulting in the over-representation of BME solicitors in regulatory decisions.

In October 2007 the SRA commissioned Lord Ouseley to undertake an independent review into the issue of disproportionality and he reported his findings in July 2008. The case audits showed that there was no disproportionality in the regulatory outcomes/sanctions applied by the SRA once a breach of the code of conduct was found. However, the review found that there may be disproportionality in the early decision making of the SRA and that this might be compounded by the possibility of bias in the intelligence and information being received by the SRA. The report also criticised the SRA for having failed to give sufficient priority to issues of equality and diversity.

The SRA responded to the recommendations of the Ouseley report through the publication of its first Equality and diversity strategy and action plan in early 2009 and in February 2011, we published a report of progress to the end of 2010. The Strategy has now been superseded by our Equality Framework, which sets out our approach to equality and diversity for 2011/12 and includes equality objectives, an equality action plan and an equality impact assessment schedule.

The SRA were keen to understand the reasons for the disproportionate involvement of BME solicitors in some of the SRA's processes, as neither the initial EIA nor Lord Ouseley's report were able to fully establish the causes. The SRA therefore commissioned Pearn Kandola, a group of business psychologists who specialise in the area of diversity, to identify how the disproportionality was occurring in the SRA and to investigate whether other regulators experienced similar disproportionality.

Pearn Kandola's interim report (PDF 23 pages, 894K) concluded that, although disproportionality existed in many regulatory systems, very few regulators had done detailed work in the area.

Pearn Kandola's final report (PDF 73 pages, 480K) looked in more detail at the SRA's data to establish at which stage in the SRA's process the disproportionality was occurring and to identify which factors contributed towards a solicitor being more likely to have a case raised against them.

The report found that there is a disproportionate number of cases involving BME solicitors reported to the SRA, which means that it is almost inevitable that there will be some disproportionality in the outcomes of these cases. Pearn Kandola has found that for some areas of decision-making the original disproportionality was increased, in some areas it remained the same and in others the disproportionality was reduced. Pearn Kandola identified a number of factors which might explain the disproportionality for BME solicitors, for example, solicitors in small firms, solicitors working for BME owned firms and solicitors with fewer years on the roll were all more likely to have a case brought against them and in each of these groups, BME solicitors were over-represented.

The SRA welcomed the report, which gave us a much more detailed view of where the disproportionality was arising, and where we should be directing our efforts. We accepted the majority of the recommendations in the report, and developed an action plan in response which is published at the end of the final report.

We have been working on these recommendations since the report was published and have now published a report of our progress and the findings of five separate case audits which we have undertaken as recommended by Pearn Kandola to look in more detail at the areas of our decision making where there was increased disproprotionality.

Although there was no evidence of unfairness or discrimination found in any of the audits, the audits have identified a number of areas where we need to make improvements in the way we are working to strengthen the quality of our decision making and transparency. This includes better data recording to make future monitoring more effective and improved recording of reasons for our decisions.

We have recently published our diversity monitoring data for 2010, which indicates similar patterns of disproportionality for BME solicitors. This remains a key concern for us and we will continue to embed equality in our new approach to outcomes-focused regulation and monitor the outcomes of our new approach as we move forward. We will continue to engage with a wide range of groups in the profession and outside, who can support us in ensuring that our work is fair and transparent.