News release

SRA consults on improvements to police station representation rules

23 September 2022

We are consulting on proposals to improve our regulation of the Police Station Representatives Accreditation Scheme (PSRAS).

This scheme allows firms carrying out publicly funded criminal defence work to have accredited representatives advise people at a police station.

While the police station representatives register is regulated by the Legal Aid Agency, we oversee the arrangements for the training and accreditation of individuals.

We want to further assure the assessment's standards and delivery, as well as act on recommendations made by our External Examiner by:

• Updating the standards used to assess the competence of individuals to reflect recent changes in the law.
• Revising assessment guidelines to provide greater clarity to organisations delivering the assessment and candidates, on how the assessment should be structured, delivered, and marked.
• Clarifying the regulations that allow us to remove an assessment organisation's authorisation.

There are currently around 5,400 representatives on the register, with around 200 new representatives gaining the PSRAS qualification each year.

Read the full Police Station Representatives Accreditation Scheme (PSRAS) consultation. It is open until 18 November 2022.