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Requiring all 10,000 law firms to report non-material breaches to the Solicitors Regulation Authority is “unsustainable and cannot be justified”, the regulator’s board will be told today. Meanwhile, the number of firms and individuals facing action over COLP/COFA nomination failures has risen to 928.

The total number of firms and individuals in trouble with the Solicitors Regulation Authority over nominations for compliance officers has risen by a third in the past month to nearly 800, it has emerged.

More than two months since law firms were meant to have their compliance officers in place, around 300 firms still do not have them, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has revealed. This is a mix of firms that have not had their nominations approved and those that have still not nominated at all.

The scale of non-compliance with the SRA over COLPs and COFAs became clear yesterday, with 152 firms now facing enforcement action for failing to complete their nominations, and the revelation that 1,200 nominees did not declare “potentially relevant issues” – including undisclosed criminal convictions, serious disciplinary sanctions and undeclared bankruptcy.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been celebrating the first year of its ABS licensing regime. It is not just a numbers game, but with 74 licences granted in that time and 300-odd still inching their way through the application process, it perhaps hasn’t necessarily been quite as glorious a first year as the SRA is making out – another way of looking at it is that there is a large backlog – but it has certainly been interesting given the range of approvals.