The Bar Council has submitted its response to the Bar Standards Board’s call for evidence on its draft 5-year strategy. Our submission covers a wide range of topics including the BSB's vision and purpose; professional ethics; challenges faced by barristers at work; unregistered barristers; and the BSB's key performance indicators, budget, and programme of activities.
Stephen Kenny KC, Chair of the Bar Council's Regulation Panel, said: "The Bar Council has serious concerns about recent successive, year-on-year increases to the Bar Standards Board’s budget, well above prevailing rates of inflation. The BSB’s future 5-year strategy should be independently determined by it, not dictated by the LSB’s longer-term strategy for the whole legal sector for the period 2021-2031.
"The BSB should prioritise the delivery of its key regulatory activities, and not venture into new projects, at ever-increasing cost to the profession. Some of the BSB’s key performance indicators remain unmet, especially in important areas such as investigations and authorisations.
"We would urge the BSB to focus its resources on its key regulatory activities. It must implement the Fieldfisher Report recommendations aimed at improving its investigations process. We also want the BSB to consider its role in regulating unregistered barristers who never acquire the right to practise. At present, practising barristers must pay for this regulation, which is an unfair burden.
"The Bar Council remains deeply committed to supporting barristers to understand and uphold their ethical obligations. We have received substantial feedback from barristers that the rules in the BSB Handbook are over-complicated, and difficult to access, especially under time pressure. The Bar Council would welcome a review of the Handbook’s format, presentation, ordering and navigability to make it easier to use."