Government legal panels are lacking in diversity, says a new report published by the Bar Council today. The Bar Council – which represents all barristers in England and Wales – is engaging with the Government to address the findings and support measures to widen the pool from which panels are recruited.
Approximately one quarter of the self-employed Bar (3,267 barristers) is employed by these panels, including the Attorney General’s Civil Panels, Treasury Counsel, Serious Fraud Office Counsel Panels, and CPS Advocate Panels. They are seen as a crucial stepping-stone in establishing a successful career as a barrister and are a key marker of career progression for self-employed barristers. In 2021 the Bar Council’s landmark Race at the Bar report recommended monitoring panel selection to gain a deeper understanding of work opportunities available to barristers from ethnic minority backgrounds.
As many Government panels do not record the ethnicity and sex of its panel members, the Bar Council has undertaken this exercise through data matching the publicly available lists of panel members with our own membership records data.
It found that:
- At both junior and KC level there is an unmistakable lack of ethnic diversity across the panels. The makeup of government panels is disproportionately White.
- This is in sharp contrast to the fact that barristers at the Bar are largely representative of the ethnic composition of the population in England and Wales.
- This becomes worse at higher levels: only three out 77 panel silks are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
- There are no Black barristers or Asian women barristers, and only very few Asian men, on any of the KC panels. Although White women are well represented on panels (and are in fact over-represented at KC level, making up over a quarter of Panel Silks), they do not always get equal access to the best quality work available.
The Bar Council firmly believes that panels should more closely reflect the makeup of the Bar and the public it serves. It has already engaged with the Government to share the report findings and discuss how to improve recruitment to the panels further.
The Bar Council is asking the Government to commit to improving outcomes for barristers from under-represented groups in panel selection and work allocation. As a first step, the Government should immediately commit to monitoring panel selection, work allocation, and income by protected characteristics and publish the results within the next 12 months.
Chair of the Bar Mark Fenhalls KC commented:
“The findings of this report act as a stark reminder that work still needs to be done to ensure equality of opportunity at the Bar. Government legal panels have a key role to play to ensure that career advancement is open to all.
“We have been working closely with stakeholders across the government panels identified in this report to address future monitoring and selection practices. We know from our work with the CPS that effective work is underway to address the disparity between men and women at senior levels, and we are keen to see this good practice on diversity spread across all government panels.”