SDT budget rises by an incredible 25%

Increase in response to a flood of cases referred by the SRA

The Legal Services Board (LSB) approved a £3.1m budget for 2025 for the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), up from £2.5m this year. The whopping 25% increase is in response to a deluge of cases referred by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

The SRA referred 50% more cases to the SDT in the last eight months. The SDT estimates that it will need 300 sitting days in 2025, up from 260 in 2024. What does this mean for firms? Time to start prioritising compliance.

But that’s not all. In an early warning, the SRA noted that prosecutions relating to the Post office scandal and Axiom Ince could send the budget even higher in 2026.

The Post Office Inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal finishes at the end of this year, with a report anticipated next spring or summer. The SRA has previously indicated that it would wait until the inquiry has ended before proceeding with any potential disciplinary proceedings against solicitors involved. Over 20 investigations were underway into solicitors and law firms linked to the Post Office scandal earlier this summer.

The SRA suspended three directors of Axiom Ince last August 2023. The firm was shut down around two months later following an SRA intervention and went into administration then.

SDT president Alison Kellett noted in her submission to the LSB the tribunal’s significant overhaul in the last two years. “We have updated tribunal processes and procedures, changed physical location and made best use of innovative IT systems, upskilling staff and members,” she wrote.

It’s worth noting that the 2024 budget was something of an outlier. In each of the previous three years, SDT’s budget was around £3.1m. In 2023 it was £4.3m, but this included £1.2m to enable the tribunal to relocate.

Solicitors pay for the SDT through their practising fees.

How are you managing your GDPR compliance requirements?

GDPR added a significant compliance burden on DPOs and data processors. Data breaches must be reported to the authorities within 72 hours, each new data processing activity needs to be documented and Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) must be carried out for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to individuals. Penalties for breaching GDPR can reach into the tens of millions of Euros.

“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”