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The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has launched an eight-week consultation on proposed updates to the Statement of Solicitor Competence (SoSC) and functioning legal knowledge (FLK), including changes to reflect the growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology on legal practice.
The regulator said the proposals were intended to ensure that the competence framework remained relevant as the legal sector evolved, while maintaining the professional standards expected by the public.
The SoSC sets out the standards of competence expected of all solicitors, while FLK defines the core legal principles and rules that candidates taking the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) must understand and apply.
Introduced in April 2015, the SoSC replaced the previous continuing professional development regime, under which solicitors were required to complete 16 hours of learning and development annually.
The latest consultation follows an earlier SRA consultation in April on strengthening its continuing competence approach. That consultation considered introducing requirements for solicitors to record their learning and development needs and how they were addressed, complete mandatory annual ethics training, and comply with regulator-directed learning and development where concerns about competence had been identified.
The current competence framework comprises the Statement of Solicitor Competence, the Statement of Knowledge setting out the required functioning legal knowledge, and the threshold standard defining the level of competence expected.
The proposed revisions follow feedback from almost 150 solicitors, law firms, educators, representative bodies and academics. The SRA said there was strong consensus that the competence statement should explicitly address the use of technology, including AI, in both the ethical and technical aspects of legal practice.
Other proposed changes concern supervision, health and wellbeing, professional conduct and ethics. The consultation also seeks views on amendments to FLK, including clarifying existing content and adding or removing material where appropriate.
Beth Black, the SRA’s director of education and training, said the competence statement provided an important foundation for public confidence in the legal profession by establishing a shared understanding of competent practice.
She said keeping the framework up to date would help ensure it remained a practical and relevant tool for solicitors, employers and educators, while supporting the standards on which public confidence depended.
The SRA is inviting views from stakeholders during the consultation, which closes on 3 December 2026. The regulator said it would engage directly with a range of stakeholders before finalising the revisions.
The updated competence statement and FLK are due to be published in April 2027 and will take effect from September 2027.
To view the consultation in full, click here.
