Complaints: Protected characteristics requirement dropped
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has decided to go ahead with rule changes requiring barristers to tell it every year, via their chambers or BSB-regulated entity, about any complaints they receive.
However, the regulator will not be asking barristers to collect data about the protected characteristics of people who make a complaint, such as their race or gender, because this might create “practical difficulties”.
The BSB launched a consultation about new rules for complaints barristers receive (so-called first-tier complaints) in May.
The changes aim to meet the requirements of the Legal Services Board’s (LSB) 2024 statutory statement of policy on how frontline legal regulators should oversee and support first-tier complaints.
In its report on the consultation, the BSB said sole practitioners, chambers and BSB entities would be given access to a new form in MyBar to upload complaints data.
Barristers would also need to confirm through the authorisation to practise process that they had done this.
If the new rules were approved by the LSB, the profession would have four months to implement the new arrangements before starting to collect the data in no less than a year’s time.
The regulator said the LSB and the Legal Services Consumer Panel (LSCP) were in favour of collecting data on protected characteristics and vulnerability to “identify and address any disparities in complaint outcomes”.
But it accepted the Bar Council’s argument about the “practical difficulties” that barristers and chambers might face when seeking to capture clients’ protected characteristics and vulnerabilities. “On that basis we have decided not to implement this field.”
The Bar Council had argued that this depended on co-operation from the complainant, which could not be guaranteed, and asking a complainant “who may already be feeling aggrieved and vulnerable” to share personal data could cause suspicion and further ill feeling.
The BSB said it had taken on board the Bar Council’s suggestions for other additional data fields, such as case funding and source of funding.
More generally, the LSCP supported the new rules, arguing that the benefits, which included “increased consumer confidence and engagement” and “enhanced oversight of service quality”.
The Criminal Bar Association “noted that there could be disproportionate impacts on criminal barristers and chambers”, as they attracted higher levels of complaints.
“They also noted impacts on ethnic minority and women practitioners, who are more highly represented in criminal work.”
The Bar Council made the same point, in relation to both family and criminal law barristers, while welcoming improved data for chambers and entities.
The BSB said it was “committed to mitigating any disproportionate impacts on barristers with protected characteristics”.
It would publish updated guidance alongside the new rules.
Mark Neale, director general of the BSB, said: “It is important that barristers provide clear information on how to complain so that, if things go wrong, people understand their rights and know that their complaint will be handled fairly and promptly.
“We have concluded that these changes are proportionate and needed and that we can successfully support the profession to improve complaints outcomes for people.”
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