The UK's largest law firms are set to receive individually tailored monitoring from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), as the regulator continues its efforts to tighten its links with City firms.

In a report issued today (21 October), the SRA has outlined plans to assign firms above a certain size their own relationship manager to identify, assesses and address risks under the new 'outcomes-focused' regulation regime.

The move follows a year-long pilot involving 19 volunteer firms, which has seen SRA reach the conclusion that larger and global outfits have "a greater range of issues that require greater engagement to understand." The exact size and revenue criteria for involvement in the new initiative has not yet been confirmed.

The SRA will now assess firms and score them according to their potential impact on the authority's regulatory objectives, with those that are considered 'high risk' then required to work with a relationship manager.

The SRA launched the relationship management pilot in autumn last year, with the participating firms divided into six groups: global and City, national, regional, niche, local and sole practitioner, in an effort to identify where the most support was needed.

Eight relationship managers (pictured) have been working with the 19 firms across a five-step 'cycle of engagement' that has involved the identification, assessment and resolution of risks in each outfit.

The report found that regulatory issues for smaller firms were generally less complex and could be resolved without the use of an ongoing relationship manager.

SRA relationship manager Suchitra Hammond said: "The feedback from all firms was overwhelmingly positive. They saw relationship management as an appropriate alternative to our previous engagement processes, which was evident from the way in which they engaged with us as part of the pilot.

"Because of the resource-intensive nature of relationship management, we had taken the view that it would be most fitting for large and commercial firms. The evidence we've collected since we started the pilot proves this to be the case, so we will be rolling out the programme to work with these practices in this way."

The report comes shortly after after the recent implementation of the new regulatory regime, which came into force on 6 October, which has seen the replacement of the former system of prescriptive rules-based regulation.