2015 was a pro-active year for the CILEx group
CILEx Law School
Despite the portents for 2014 being unpromising, we were pleasantly surprised by the year’s outcome. So, 2015 was anticipated with a skip in the corporate step, and a belief that we could build on last year’s unexpected success.
Pleasingly, that has been the case, with 2015 proving to be a good year for CILEx Law School (CLS) and its students. The success has been shared across the company; so, for sake of brevity, here are just some of the main achievements:
- Apprenticeships! It appears that politicians of all stripes are championing them, and CLS has played its part. We have recruited more to our apprenticeship programmes than we expected, working in partnership with firms and eleven local authorities. Interest in the new trailblazer apprenticeship is growing too, the development of which has involved CLS.
- Our students on CILEx courses will have noticed that our e-learning facilities are becoming even more comprehensive; however, we have taken care to ensure that these do not displace the personal service for which CLS is renowned. Our annual student survey, which was completed by over 700 CLS students, applauded the levels of help and support you receive on our CILEx programmes.
It will make 2016 an exciting year of change and further course development.
CILEx Regulation
The then ILEX Professional Standards was rebranded as CILEx Regulation, with a launch event, in London, in March 2015. The CILEx Regulation website was launched, and:
established a social media presence on LinkedIn and Twitter;
initiated e-marketing campaigns to promote practice rights and entity regulation;
- established regular member mailings with the fortnightly CILEx Regulation E-Newsletter .
- The company oversaw the roll out of:
- practice rights, with 11 authorised to date;
- entity regulation, with two authorised to date;
- a new Code; and IDAR and all other rules.
The CILEx Compensation Fund was established and, in addition, CILEx Regulation established itself as an anti-money laundering regulator.
CILEx Regulation conducted research into the following:
- licensing and demand;
- Youth Court research; and
- ethics in advocacy, and collaborated with others on the following:
- deregulation work streams (Legal Services Board (LSB) and Mayson work);
- ethics in advocacy research;
- Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates; and
- The Advocate’s Gateway.
In addition, there was work on professional indemnity insurance run-o ff cover and the submission of the case to review this area was made to the LSB. CPD non-compliance work was completed on time, as was CPD sampling.
CILEx Regulation raised its profile at various events, including:
- completing its term of office as chair of the Regulators Forum (recognition by the Consumer Panel, the LSB, LeO and other regulators);
- being recognised by Mike Napier QC, at Westminster Forum event on innovation in legal services.
- organising the practice rights roadshows;
CILEx Regulation bade farewell to Ian Watson on his retirement, and said ‘hello’ to Helen Whiteman, who took up her role on 1 September 2015.
Qualifications team
The Qualifications team has been working closely with employers, and other stakeholders, on a range of existing and new qualifications this year. This includes:
- Working with the Trailblazer Employer Group to develop this new style of apprenticeship. The final assessment plans were approved in September 2015 for first delivery in September 2016.
- Working with a number of employers, centres, branches and other stakeholders to develop and submit an application to provide a Level 3 Tech Level qualification aimed at 16 to 18 year old learners, to be delivered in schools and FE colleges.
- We continue to work closely with City and Guilds, in both the delivery of the Legal Secretarial and Legal Studies qualifications and on the development of a new Tech Level qualification. An equivalent Level 2 qualification for Legal Secretaries will be developed during 2015 and 2016. As an extension to it, we have been meeting with a number of City firms throughout 2015, to ensure that the City and Guilds qualifications reflect the requirements of the employers who rely on them.
- We have again processed approximately 12,500 examination candidates for the January and June exam sessions, and with the Professional and Apprenticeship knowledge qualifications combined, we offer 49 units, of which a record 48 units were sat in June 2015.
- We continue to support the delivery of the Legal Services Apprenticeships and the first apprentices have now successfully completed the programme and received certification.
Regulatory Affairs Department
2015 has been a busy year for the Regulatory Affairs Department:
- We secured agreement from the Land Registry for Fellows to verify identity on the ID1 and ID2 forms.
- We successfully fought for eligibility for Fellows to apply for lawyer vacancies in the Government Legal Service. We also worked effectively with the Civil Procedure Rule Committee to change the N260 statement of costs (summary assessment) court form, to include reference to Chartered Legal Executives with over eight years’ PQE being entitled to claim Grade A rates.
- We engaged with members, and contributed to a wideranging variety of consultations, including those on increasing court fees; the call for evidence for the MedCo portal; inhouse lawyer regulations; the proposals to reduce the court and tribunal estate in England and Wales; and eligibility for appointment as a QC.
- We continue to attend a number of stakeholder groups and forums, where we represent the views of our members, such as the PACE review strategy board, the Judicial Diversity Forum, and the Office of the Public Guardian stakeholders group.
- We updated our popular practice advice web pages.
Membership Services
It has been another busy year in the membership department at CILEx, with a number of new activities and other areas of work becoming revitalised. The CILEx branch network had a great year, with a record number of new branches established in Hertfordshire, South West Wales, Brighton & Hove, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
At the Branch Personnel Day in September, we launched the new-look branch toolkit. Branch members had the opportunity to network and discuss organising successful events, ways to increase membership and how they could get involved in the promotion of practice rights. As a result of these discussions, much more work and activity is planned for 2016 to help all members benefit from their local branch; so, if you are not involved, this is a great time to join. www.cilexbranches.org.uk
The membership team has been spending more time than ever this year meeting with firms in the legal sector as part of their new employer engagement strategy. With visits to over 150 employers across the country, we have had the opportunity to discuss a range of issues which impact on our members, including training and development, parity with other legal professionals, the CILEx-authorised practitioner process (practice rights) and entity regulation. These conversations are informing the development of our strategy for 2016, and we anticipate being able to offer a wider range of support services for employers which will help our members in their place of work.
If you would like us to come along to speak to anyone in your firm, please contact the team.
In addition, practice rights were launched formally this year, and we have run nine events around the country and spoken to over 700 people about practice rights.
We attended three national careers guidance shows in London, Leeds and Leicester. This provided us with a great opportunity to promote the CILEx pathway and qualifications to careers advisers and practitioners working with young people all over the country.
Other things that we have done:
- worked to launch new university centres;
- the paralegal enquiry;
- the 2015 graduation;
- welcomed a new director of development, Victoria Hurdley, who heads up the membership team.