Issues statement that leaves open possibility of it never happening
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will miss its self-imposed deadline for publishing SQE pass rates among providers.
The regulator previously committed to publishing candidate performance data, including pass rates by training provider, from “late 2023”.
But with a little over a week left of the year, the SRA has been unable to provide aspiring solicitors with this key information which, the regulator itself acknowledges, “will benefit future candidates as it may be a factor for them to consider when choosing a training provider”.
Currently, the SRA provides pass rates — and pass marks — for each sitting of SQE1 and SQE2.
On the delay, an SRA spokesperson pointed to a recent update that states:
“We are committed to publishing further data to help potential SQE candidates decide how best they might prepare for the assessments. We had intended to publish, before the end of 2023, data that would link candidate outcomes with the training they told us they had undertaken. However, we do not yet have sufficient data to enable us to publish information in a way that would be useful, given the variety of training options available.”
It continues: “The bank of data on which we can draw will, of course, grow as more candidates take the SQE. These numbers are increasing significantly, particularly for SQE1. We will review the data that becomes available after each sitting in 2024 to determine whether the data bank is large enough to inform a useful publication.”
The hold-up will likely frustrate law schools and students alike, given it was one of the regulator’s key selling points in moving away from the Legal Practice Course.
Some law schools have taken steps to publish a breakdown of their various pass rates, although this relies on students self-reporting their scores to their training provider. Others providers, however, have so far chosen not publish candidate success rates.