Comment: Exams for compliance staff?
How do we know our compliance officers are well qualified?
Those of us who follow the Council for Licensed Conveyancer's activities will know that last year (2022) they consulted on training and learning requirements for compliance staff and mandatory compliance post holders. We might well ask how we know our compliance staff are well qualified. Oftentimes I would look at experience and that can mean years of work and training. There is not a qualification out there just for us compliance staff.
Regardless of which legal regulator your firm is regulated by, we might expect our compliance staff to understand a range of material - from regulator codes of conduct and interpretations, to AML, and accepted complaint handling standards. In some solicitor legal aid firms an understanding of the SQM or LAA contract is essential. If you work in accounts or perform the function of a COFA, the accounts rules are centre stage in your work and learning their functions is a pre-requisite to the post.
However there can be more than that - with potential claims to handle, cybercrime to combat, management problems to solve, audit work to undertake, and supporting individual learning needs assessments to assure competence, there is a large variety of work that needs to be done. And this is before we cover the legal aspects of the compliance officer or management role - such aspects might include a detailed understand of potential enforcement actions and problems associated with regulatory proceedings; the basis of tort actions; underlying legal work for the areas of compliance support, audit, and file reviews; and the basics of criminal investigations.
There is no such detailed proposal on the table from either the SRA, CLC, or any of the other legal regulators. At the moment, the body of work underlying legal regulation and the suggestion of competence within compliance is an underdeveloped theme for compliance officers, consultants, and other associated staff.



