The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has today published its latest annual Regulatory Decision-Making Report. This is the fifth report that the BSB has published since it reformed the way regulatory decisions are taken in October 2019. It covers the period from April 2023 to March 2024. During the past year, we have been significant increases in our productivity, timeliness and responsiveness in most areas of our work. We have also benefited from an end-to-end review of our enforcement policies and processes by Fieldfisher LLP. We are now implementing their recommendations which we believe will further improve our performance in that area.

The most important criterion for judging our performance remains of course the quality of our decision-making and this remains high, as confirmed by the reports from the Independent Reviewers but improving the timeliness of our decision-making remains our top priority.

We will be publishing the report as an expandable web page as we did last year, because we feel this is a more accessible format. Readers can also access the accompanying statistical report here. The key statistical findings of the report are as follows:

• We received 2,701 reports, general enquiries, and other cases compared to 2,824 in 2022/23.
• Reports received involving social media fell from 115 (involving 53 barristers) to 88 (involving 35 barristers), following a 20% in the previous year.
• There was a fall in the overall number of reports received relating to sexual harassment/misconduct (from 16 cases in 2022-23 to 7 cases in 2023-24) , and most of the cases opened in both the Investigations and Enforcement and Supervision Teams related to bullying and/or harassment within the profession. We hope that our current series of meetings with the profession around the country – which follow the recommendations in our report Addressing Bullying and Harassment at the Bar –will raise awareness as to how we handle reports particularly of harassment, including sexual harassment, and will encourage such reporting.  It also illustrates the importance of the independent review of bullying and harassment at the Bar led by Baroness Harman PC KC which the Bar Council announced in June 2024.
• Cases referred for investigation fell from 122 to 108, a decrease of 11%. 33 out of 39 cases heard at Tribunal were found proved.
• 94 reports were referred to Supervision from CAT compared to 79 the previous year, an increase of 19%. A further 69 cases were received directly by Supervision compared to 35 in 2022/23.
• 25% increase in the number of applications received (over 40% being applications submitted by Transferring Qualified Lawyers).
• 614 barristers began their pupillage during the reporting period compared to 535 in 2022/23, 539 in 2021/22 and 416 in 2020/21.

This will be the final report published which covers this set of KPIs. We launched new KPIs and performance monitoring measures from April 2024, covering quality, timeliness, service and productivity, which we believe reflect our operational performance in a more balanced way. Over the coming year we will also be working to implement the recommendations of the end-to-end review of our enforcement processes conducted by Fieldfisher LLP.

Commenting on the report, Mark Neale, the Director General of the BSB said:

“I welcome this report which shows the progress we are making in improving the productivity, timeliness and responsiveness of our decision-making while maintaining its quality. But there is no room for complacency and implementing the recommendations of the Fieldfisher report and making further improvements to the timeliness and efficiency of our work remains our top priority”

The Independent Decision-making Body, which takes regulatory decisions on behalf of the BSB that require independent input, has also published its annual report today. You can read about that report here.