Probate Services (Approved Bodies) Order 2009

In preparing for this Motion, I discovered the hazards of being a jobbing Whip: three hours into reading my papers, I realised that I had to declare an interest. My son is some sort of certified accountant and he could conceivably be allowed to do probate work as a result of this order. I hope that the Committee is content for me to continue to take the order through. This order is presented under Section 55 of, and Schedule 9 to, the 1990 Act. It will enable the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants—the ACCA—to become an approved body and authorise suitably qualified members to provide probate services for a fee, gain or reward. By probate services, I mean of course the preparation of any papers on which to found or oppose a grant of probate or a grant of letters of administration. At the moment, Section 23 of the Solicitors Act 1974 restricts the provision of probate services for a fee, gain or reward to specified legal practitioners, but Section 55 of the Act provides an exception for members of an approved body. The ACCA is the third organisation to seek parliamentary approval to become an approved body since Section 55 was commenced in December 2004. Two other organisations, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, became approved bodies to provide probate services on 1 August 2008. However, only the Council for Licensed Conveyancers has begun to issue probate licences to members. To date, it has issued 18 probate licences. The application, received in January 2008, has passed through the required statutory approval procedure set out at Schedule 9 to the 1990 Act. In doing so, it has been considered and approved by the Legal Services Consultative Panel and the President of the Family Division. The panel was keen to ensure that the arrangements the ACCA proposed to put in place in terms of training, regulation and consumer protection were on a par with those of previous applicants and existing providers before recommending approval. As a result, this application has my full support. The ACCA is a professional body of accountants. It received its royal charter in 1974 and has more than 53,000 members in England and Wales. Members are required to meet the academic and post-qualification requirements before being eligible for membership and obtaining accountancy practising certificates. Approximately 6,400 members currently hold practising certificates. Under the terms of the application, probate practising rights will be granted to members who currently hold practising certificates in accountancy and who wish to provide probate services in England and Wales only. Before members of the ACCA are granted practising rights, they will need to show that they can satisfy the requirements set out in Section 55 if they wish to provide probate services. These include: completing the required training course and ensuring their employees are suitably trained and satisfy the continuing professional development requirements set by the ACCA; having satisfactory insurance and compensation arrangements in place to cover adequately the risk of any claim made against them and to protect the client in the event of them ceasing to provide probate services; and having a complaints scheme in place, including a route of appeal to the Legal Services Ombudsman. The ACCA has demonstrated in its application that consumer protection is something that it takes seriously. As an established professional body in its field of expertise, it already has in place effective systems of monitoring and enforcement and will ensure that there are additional, suitably robust monitoring systems in place for members now providing probate services. The potential benefits to the consumer of this application being approved include more choice of provider, more competitive prices and the opportunity for ACCA members to provide a more cost-effective and efficient service to existing clients. This is precisely what Section 55 was intended to do and is in keeping with the principle central to the Government’s policy of providing new and better ways of providing legal services, with a wider choice and at more competitive prices. Consumers who are unhappy about the way in which the ACCA has dealt with a complaint about the provision of probate services can refer the case to the Legal Services Ombudsman. The LSO’s jurisdiction was extended in October 2004 to cover bodies authorised under Section 55 of the Courts and Legal Services Act, shortly before the relevant provisions were commenced. If the order is approved, it is not anticipated that the LSO will receive a high number of additional complaints per year. In the longer term, complaints about ACCA members will be dealt with by the new Office for Legal Complaints, in line with complaints about members of other legal professional bodies. If this order is approved, a subsequent order will need to be laid amending the Legal Services Act to bring the ACCA under the jurisdiction of the Legal Services Board. This will ensure that the ACCA retains its probate rights in the future regulatory regime and that it is subject to the same oversight as other regulators, such as the Council for Licensed Conveyancers and the Law Society. I commend these orders to the Committee.