We planned to grow our membership and income by being a vibrant, influential and inclusive organisation through two key projects.
2016-17 facts and figures
Grow projects
| Action | Summary of progress for the year | Complete/not complete |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial and non-core activities We will continue to grow our non-core income through new and existing activities, aiming to deliver £2m against a budget of £1.84m by the end of the year. | Our year-end total for commercial and non-core activities was £2.22m, including £252k of investment gains. We also put an appraisal panel in place to critically evaluate investment proposals using set parameters to determine whether Board approval is required. | Complete |
| New membership categories and qualifications We will prepare for the launch of our new membership categories in 2017/18 through research with potential new members, developing new member categories and agreeing the qualification requirements. | Student Associate numbers have grown over the year and now sit well above target at 1,636. Considerable policy work has been undertaken around the creation of an ‘Accredited Legal Technologists’ category. We are waiting for sign off for the trademark of that term. We also launched a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), ‘Maritime Law: An Introduction to Shipping Transactions’, on 30 October with 1,536 joiners (equivalent to expressions of interest), and 667 active learners of whom 39 upgraded to paying members. | Complete |
| Lawscot Foundation We will seek to grow the numbers of law and diploma students from low income backgrounds by raising an additional £150,000 for the Lawscot Foundation and issuing the first bursaries. | The Lawscot Foundation was successfully launched in April 2017 and we received 51 applications, of which 43 were eligible. The trustees considered all applications and selected eight students to be offered financial and mentoring support. We launched various fundraising initiatives including direct promotion to firms and to individual solicitors throughout the PC renewal process. We also launched text donation and #BaubleFest, a Christmas campaign. The total raised in the 2016/17 financial year was £24,960.33. This excludes the donation of £261,585 from the sale of Legal Post. | Not complete |
| Membership growth We will grow the total number of solicitor members by developing a new strategy for retaining non-practising members and improving our communication of membership options for all membership groups. | Retention has improved by 9% this year and we carried out analysis of those who surrendered their practising certificates. Proposals were considered for a repositioning the Non-practising Member category as a career break option. Ultimately, we felt the most viable element of the proposal was extending the period a solicitor can be without practising certificate (with no restrictions on return) from 12 to 13 months. | Complete |
| Paralegals We will improve the range of services and support made available to paralegals; seek to increase membership of our paralegal scheme by 15%. | We obtained the IP for a new term and the Registered Paralegal status was relaunched and renamed ’Accredited Paralegal’. This was well received by paralegals and their employers. During the year we held a successful launch party to recognise the new status and have attended a number of events to promote the scheme including conferences, law fairs, Faculty visits and other CPD events. We have also made presentations to individual firms. We have grown membership of the scheme by 10%. | Complete |
