Thursday 08 November 2012

More than 1,000 practising certificate renewals were approved within five days of the 2012 process opening, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said this week, despite a software bug causing frustration in the first days.

Registration through the mySRA website opened on 1 November for solicitors renewing their certificates.

A total of 4,878 applications had been logged as the Gazette went to press on Tuesday, of which 1,080 were completed. The SRA is hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2012 renewal process, which experienced delays and missed deadlines after the online system struggled to cope with applications.

There was initial concern at problems experienced in the first few hours after the PC renewal system went live. Investigations showed that the servers were overestimating the numbers accessing the site and the system thought it had reached capacity.

The SRA said the problem has been resolved and that extra capacity was added to enable larger numbers of solicitors to access it at any one time. A spokeswoman added: 'The system is working quite well at the moment.'

Solicitors have until 14 December to make their applications, with a Q&A webinar scheduled by the SRA for 21 November.