We are four months into the new Continuing Competence regime and, according to Melissa Hardee writing on the Law Society's website, many firms are unnecessarily making a rod for their own back.

In the piece Melissa highlights that the requirements of Continuing Competence are no different to those of the previous CPD regime, specifically the obligation under principle 5 of the SRA Handbook to provide a proper standard of service to clients. Thus, if firms were able to comply with principle 5 before the Continuing Competence changes, then removal of a requirement for 16 hours of CPD a year should have no impact on this.

Using the analogy of cake baking competitions, Melissa points out that the old CPD rules were like a competition in which both the recipe and the judging criteria are prescribed, whereas the new Continuing Competence regime only prescribes the judging criteria and bakers are free to follow whatever recipe they like.

In short, whilst firms may wish to modify their procedures to accommodate the new regime, there is no requirement for them to do so - if their procedures fulfilled principle 5 before the changes then those procedures will continue to fulfill the requirements.

The full article can be viewed here.