The CILEX Annual Report and AGM

10.30am, Wednesday 27 November 2024 (virtual)

Notice of Annual General Meetings 2024

The CILEX Annual General Meeting will be held at 11.45am on Tuesday 16 July and will incorporate the inauguration of the new CILEX President and Vice President.

Ahead of the meeting, you may wish to review the CILEX 2023 Annual Report, and the minutes from the 2023 AGM.

View the notice and agenda

Register to attend the AGM

Notice of Special General Meetings 2024

A Special General Meeting, chaired by the CILEX President, was held on Friday 21 June 2024. View the notice here and you can also read the Minutes here.

A Special General Meeting, chaired by the CILEX President, was held at 12.30pm on Thursday 28th March 2024, at 2 Glass Wharf, Bristol BS2 0EL & via Zoom. You can view the recording here.

You can view the SGM notice and responses to Member SGM Requests made under Bye-Law 22, 23 and 27.

A Special General Meeting also took place on Thursday 11 January 2024. You can view the Special General Meeting Notice here and the recording of the meeting here.

Responses to Member SGM Requests made under Bye-Law 27

You can view the response provided by CILEX to member requests for an SGM to consider resolutions related to our governance and decision-making in our capacity as an Approved Regulator under the Legal Services Act 2007 here.

You can view the response provided by CILEX to resolutions proposed under Byelaw 27 here.

CILEX AGM 2023

The CILEX AGM took place virtually on Wednesday 4 October at 9.30am. The minutes will be available shortly.

Below are the answers to questions posed by members during the AGM.

1. What has CILEX spent in dealing with its review of regulation?

In 2022, CILEX spent a total of £49,843 on our review of regulation, equating to 0.4% of our total annual expenditure. This cost was for the independent review of the evidence base and associated report, PR and communications activity, and the cost of responding to the LSB’s investigation. No costs were incurred in respect to the SRA.

In addition to this, CILEX incurred legal costs of £169,528 in responding to CILEx Regulation’s threat of injunction seeking to block our review and challenge our authority as the approved regulator. We also understand, from CILEx Regulation’s submitted accounts, that they spent £268,000 on their legal challenge, plus a further £70,000 in additional related staff costs. CILEx Regulation also sought subsidy from CILEX to the value of £50,000. This was for staff retention payments. CILEX also continues to provide £250,000 of underwriting guarantee for the CILEx Regulation compensation fund.

Whilst CILEX has no control over CILEx Regulation expenditure, it does affect the CILEX consolidated accounts, and is therefore mentioned here.

2. Can we be given access to the full CILEX accounts?

The full accounts are as contained and published in the 2022 Annual Report and Accounts, available on the CILEX website along with those reports from previous years. This is in full compliance with the requirement under the byelaws to make the full accounts available to our membership.

CILEX chooses not to exercise its right to only publish abbreviated accounts, as we are permitted to do under the byelaws, and instead to proactively publish our full audited accounts each year as part of the AGM in line with our commitment to transparency and to ensure they are available to all members not only on request.

The new board members have been in place for a while now, when will the website be updated with the members details?

There are 2 Boards listed on the CILEX website. The first is the CILEX Group Board; this is the overarching Board of the Institute and all members of this Board are listed on the CILEX website.

Secondly, our Professional Board, which is the Board in which the member interest sits and our representation activity occurs. The website lists all our substantial members of this Board. We have recently appointed some co-opted members, who have a different status to full Board members and these are not therefore listed.as they do not have voting rights. If following our consultation, this changes, the website will be updated accordingly.

As roles are recruited into the Board, these are updated on the website with the next appointments expected in 2024.

3. Is there any reason why the AGM could not be held in the evening when more members might be available, rather than during work hours?

We continually review arrangements for hosting the AGM and other events to facilitate maximum attendance. Evidence from other webinars and member events suggests that virtual attendance is higher for events hosted during the working day than in the evening.

Additionally, feedback from members is that caring and family responsibilities make evening attendance inaccessible. Daytime scheduling also allows auditor attendance which is an essential element of our AGM business. We will however continue to review for future years based on feedback received.

4. What are your plans to boost membership?

We currently have over 18,000 members including Institute of Paralegals, but recognise that this is lower than our previous high. This has been caused largely by the transition from our previous level 3/level 6 qualification to the new CPQ qualification.

Some of the learners previously registered on the old route have left CILEX as they are no longer studying or working in legal services. In addition there has been a slight lag in volumes of CPQ and apprenticeship registrations having replaced them, particularly in the context of CPQ having launched during the pandemic and the new apprenticeship standard having not received Ministerial approval until 2023.

We anticipate that the new Chartered Paralegal status will offer significant growth into new paralegal markets in addition to continuing to promote the benefits of CPQ via the distance learning and apprenticeship routes.

5. If CILEX are selling its headquarters (Kempston Manor), will there be any physical head office or will operations be online only?

CILEX does not intend to purchase another building. However, we are exploring different solutions that will support staff in flexible/hybrid working for certain activities. For example, bringing staff together for meetings, training and other collaborative activities.

6. Are there any plans to resume local branch CILEX groups for support and networking?

The previous CILEX branch structure was ended in December 2022, following a consultation with branch leaders which showed that the formal and bureaucratic rules made it difficult to attract committee members and that members were less likely to engage following COVID.

For those branches that were still active, we have encouraged them to transition into independent unaffiliated networks for CILEX members. Several such networks are now running and CILEX continues to promote their activities via email and social media, where this is demonstrable professional benefit to members in the area.

In addition, we have exciting plans for the future of professional networking at CILEX. Later this year, we’ll be launching an online community for all CILEX members, the aim of which is to allow members to connect with peers based on their own area of interest, whether that’s practice area, geographical location or even career stage.

We will continue to run in-person networking events for members across England and Wales, where members can hear key updates from CILEX HQ, connect with colleagues and engage with local employers.

If you would like to set up a local network in your area, or are interested in getting involved with CILEX to promote the route to qualification, network with members or build your leadership skills, please get in touch with us by email to [email protected].