Company secretarial services are increasingly being outsourced by companies both listed and private, large and small. Here, leading corporate and legal support firm London Registrars (https://www.london-registrars.co.uk/) reveals why so many companies are choosing to trust a third party provider with the company secretary function.

Until recently, most companies preferred to keep important roles within the confines of an in-house team, citing reliability, accountability and accessibility as reasons for this preference. The perception, perhaps, was of having less control over outsourced functions and in the case of the company secretarial role, control is vital to ensure legal compliance at all times. In actual fact, in recent years there has been a shift in attitude when it comes to outsourcing the company secretary function, with more companies than ever before entrusting these vital duties to experienced business support firms. London Registrars is a corporate and legal support firm which provides company secretarial support, including a company secretarial audit service. As such, the firm has been privy to the reasons why companies choose to hand over these duties to external companies.

Many companies are now being incorporated without this role in place, creating an immediate demand for company administration services, whether that means simply keeping the statutory books or the provision of full company secretarial services. At one time, outsourcing this role was seen as a more costly option than employing someone in-house, however with the advent of more third party companies offering this service, and the competitive pricing this has created, outsourcing has now become a low cost way to ensure company compliance.

Rather than hire specifically for this role, the in-house company secretarial duties were carried out, in many cases, by one of the existing team. This at first seemed like a cost-effective move, but it soon became apparent that the provision of company secretarial services was highly time consuming and that there was more value in freeing up the in-house team member for their primary role in the business. There was also more control and efficiency in the handling of company secretarial duties by an external provider which had no focus other than these duties. Feedback also revealed that outsourcing this function to a company which could provide further support if needed, from corporate governance to legal guidance, increased the value of outsourcing thanks to the accessibility of these professional advisors.

London Registrars has witnessed a significant increase in demand for external company secretarial services. More companies are realising that successful outsourcing of this function is down to finding the right corporate support firm, one which is highly experienced and reliable, competitively priced and which offers a comprehensive range of wider support services. To find out more about the services available from London Registrars, visit https://www.london-registrars.co.uk/.