Succession & exit planning

Succession planning in the wider context of your business

Succession planning is not just for family firms, nor is it simply about planning for retirement. Your firm may be a sole practice or a large organisation with many stakeholders but the issue is the same. Succession planning is about deciding what the plan is for the future of your firm and then putting the right actions in place to deliver that plan.

Succession planning will be defined by whether your goal for your firm is to:

  1. grow

  2. hold (remain the same)

  3. dispose, or

  4. close

Once the goal is clear, succession planning becomes a lot easier. Your plans will always need to address the demands of clients, people, structure, finance and risk but the emphasis will vary according to your goal.

Staff retention will need careful management if you are looking to close, but nurturing the talent of the future will be critical if you wish to grow. If you aim to sell, the focus will be on what it is you will be selling.

There is no one answer when it

To view the latest version of this document and thousands of others like it, sign-in with LexisNexis or register for a free trial.

Powered by Lexis+®
Latest Practice Management News

Right to work guidance updated on Digital Verification Service checks

The Home Office has issued an updated version of its ‘Employer’s guide to right to work checks’ document, with the changes primarily related to simplifying the information on digital checks for employers of British and Irish citizens who have a valid passport (or Irish passport card). The new version has removed various technical details which were previously intended for providers of these digital verification services, and revised the relevant terminology, so that ‘Digital Verification Service (DVS)’ now includes both the terms Identity Service Providers (IDSPs) and Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT). This is stated to align the guidance with the terminology used in the UK digital identity and attributes framework and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Guidance and requirements specifically for DVS are now set out in a separate, supplementary code for digital right to work checks. The relevant guidance for employers has been revised. Although it is not currently mandatory for employers to use a DVS certified against the ‘trust framework’ and the supplementary code, this position will change ‘in the near future’, and it will become mandatory to use a DVS listed on the register of certified DVS (maintained by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA)). In other changes, the new version reiterates that an original expired BRP is not proof of a right to work, and instead an online check must be taken. It also confirms that short-term entry clearance vignettes are being phased out, and that increasingly persons recently issued entry clearance will only have their eVisa to rely on for these purposes, so will need to create a UKVI account as soon as possible and can do this from overseas. In relation to asylum seekers with a pending claim, the guidance now states that they can also volunteer whilst their claim is considered without being granted permission to work, but they can only carry out 'paid' work if they have been granted permission to work under the Immigration Rules, Part 11, paras 360 or 360C. Previously the reference in our quotation marks to ‘paid’ work stated ‘voluntary’ work

View Practice Management by content type :

Popular documents