Bar Council responds to BSB’s new policy on barrister training

The Bar Council has responded to the Bar Standards Board’s new policy statement on pupillage, work-based learning and qualification.

On three main points, the Bar Council was pleased to see that the BSB had adopted its suggestions, as submitted in an earlier consultation. They were that:

• pupillage should last a minimum of 12 months;
• pupillage providers should be reauthorised if they wish to continue to offer pupillage; and
• there should be refresher training for pupil supervisors every five years.

However, Guy Fetherstonhaugh QC, chair of the Bar Council’s Education & Training Committee, expressed concern that some of their recommendations had not been adopted, such as that pupil supervisors should only have one pupil.

He also warned that some of the BSB’s proposals relating to the BPTC could be problematic: “We are wary of the proposals to deregulate matters such as class size, at a time when personalised vocational training in small cohorts is viewed by the Bar as vitally important; and we view with equal concern the proposal to allow unlimited applications for resits for up to 5 years – at a time when students taking the current BPTC have an unprecedentedly high failure rate. We welcome the fact that the Inns of Court are giving careful consideration to offering their own two-part BPTC training, as the Bar Council and the Council of the Inns of Court have advocated over the last two years. We hope that course will concentrate on providing talented Bar students from all backgrounds with the best possible vocational grounding.”