4Recent changes to the AGFS
46.In the previous chapter, we discussed the recent changes to the LGFS and their actual and potential impact on criminal defence solicitors. In this chapter, we consider the parallel changes that have been made to the AGFS, affecting members of the Criminal Bar and solicitors qualified as Higher Court Advocates.
The MoJ proposals for revising the AGFS
47.In 2015, the Bar Council published its own proposals for a revised AGFS, which led to a working group being set up with membership drawn from both legal professions. Andrew Walker QC summarised for us what had happened after the March 2014 “truce” with the Ministry of Justice:
Part of the arrangement was that the Ministry would look at an alternative scheme—an alternative to imposing the cuts. […] The aim was to try to design a new scheme that the Ministry could be persuaded to put in place, which would persuade it that at the same time it needed to invest more money. […] One of the difficulties we have encountered is that, even when we have put forward and costed a scheme, it would cost more than the existing scheme. The fundamental problem has been lack of money.
48.The MoJ says that it “carefully considered” the proposals for reform put forward by the working group of the legal professions67 before setting out its own proposals for revising the AGFS in a consultation paper published on 5 January 2017.68 Mr Walker considered that the MoJ proposals were put forward in a spirit of genuine consultation:
As regards the Ministry’s attitude in the consultation paper, it was very much a matter of them saying, “We were presented with an alternative.” […] As was always inevitably going to have to happen, there was a consultation, and it was genuinely a consultation.69
49.Signalling a move away from reliance on PPE, the Ministry summarised its approach as follows:
The counting of pages, and counting of new forms of electronic evidence converted to “pages” is no longer the most effective way of assessing how much work an advocate needs to do in an individual case, and therefore how much that advocate should be paid. Our proposed scheme reduces reliance on counting pages, and instead would introduce a more sophisticated system of classifying offences—based on the typical amount of work required in each case. The time spent in court, conducting the advocacy upon which our justice system relies, would also become a more important driver for the fee paid. The proposed scheme is designed to be cost neutral…70
The MoJ suggested that its approach would provide greater transparency and certainty for advocates, including by making it easier to apportion fees between different advocates appearing in the same case; in addition, the junior Bar would be better protected, because of the separate payments for hearings often undertaken by junior barristers—such as Plea and Trial Preparations Hearings (PTPH) and Sentence Hearings. (We discuss the perceptions of a recruitment crisis in the junior Criminal Bar later in this chapter.)
50.In essence, the MoJ proposed a more sophisticated approach to the categorisation of offences, moving from 11 offence categories (with no sub-categorisation) to 16 categories, each of which would be subdivided into bands—with 42 bands in total.71 A key factor in determining the “basic graduated fee” payment would be the category/band of the case, designed to reflect the average amount of work required in a typical case of that type; the other factor would be the category of advocate. The basic fee would cover the first day of the trial and three “conferences and views”,72 together with “standard appearances” (such as PTPH and Sentence Hearings) in excess of six; separate fees would cover the first six standard appearances.73 There would be an additional daily attendance fee for each trial day after the first day, once again determined by case category/banding and the category of advocate. In addition to the basic fee, there would be revised fixed fee payments for guilty pleas and “cracked trials”,74 according to the circumstances and type of case and the category of advocate; and an enhanced daily fee for ineffective trials.75 Departing from the existing AGFS scheme, which allowed special preparation for “very unusual” cases, special preparation would be reserved for “outlying cases” where there are novel points of law or fact, or where there is an exceptional amount of evidence—defined as PPE of over 10,000. 76
Response of the Criminal Bar to the consultation proposals
51.The Bar Council’s initial response to the proposed AGFS was positive. In a press release,77 it commented as follows:
The Bar Council and the Young Barristers’ Committee welcome new proposals published today by the Ministry of Justice which will mean barristers and other advocates will be paid fairly for the work they do in publicly funded criminal cases. The new, fairer Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS), if implemented, will mean barristers’ fees are no longer based on outdated and distorting factors such as the number of pages in a case, but instead are paid according to the seriousness and complexity of the work.
When we asked Andrew Walker QC about the Bar Council’s initial response to the MoJ’s proposals for the AGFS, he explained:
There was appreciation that lots of people had been involved in trying to produce something that was an improvement on the former scheme. The overall reaction was to recognise that there were many positive elements in the structure. The difficulty, inevitably, is when you get into the detail. It would be wrong to say that even the initial response from the Bar Council in 2017 was a full welcoming of the scheme.78
52.In the Bar Council’s written response to the consultation (submitted two months after its initial press release),79 preceding its comments on points of detail—particularly on the categorisation of cases and the level of fees, it again expressed support in principle for the new structure, but pointed out that many barristers and chambers had undertaken calculations which led them to conclude that they would face fee cuts—raising doubts as to whether the scheme would in fact be cost neutral as the MoJ had promised. The Council noted that the “cost neutrality” calculation had been based on the AGFS case mix in 2014/15; however, the costings for the new scheme represented a reduction in funding when matched against the 2015–16 AGFS expenditure data that had subsequently become available, showing an increase in expenditure that year; this much had been accepted by the MoJ’s January 2017 Impact Assessment,80 which had stated: “Using 2015–16 data the proposed scheme was estimated to cost around 3% less than the current scheme.”
53.Similar views had been expressed in the CBA’s consultation response, as Angela Rafferty QC explained to us:
From our perspective, we were more cautious, but our concerns were the same. We made it clear, in the response and throughout, that funding was inadequate for the entire budget.
Like the Bar Council, the CBA made various comments on detailed aspects of the proposals; we do not discuss these here, as the main focus of this chapter is on the overall approach to revising the AGFS and the funding available to support the scheme.81 The CBA expressed a similar view to that of the Bar Council on the need for a review mechanism for the scheme, together with index linking to avoid further erosion of fees. Although the CBA acknowledged that the principles underlying the proposals were rational, it took issue with the MOJ’s focus on cost neutrality, the lack of new investment and the shift of money away from the basic graduated fees to allow for separate payments that had previously been part of the single, bundled fee. The CBA expressed particular concerns about proposed fees for the junior Bar—a view potentially at odds with the Bar Council’s insistence that the AGFS should have larger graduations to promote diversity and support career development, thus encouraging more senior barristers to remain part of the Criminal Bar rather than moving to better remunerated commercial work.
The final version of the revised AGFS scheme
The MoJ’s response to the AGFS consultation
54.In February 2018, the Ministry of Justice published the Government response to the consultation.82 This set out a number of changes to its original proposals that the MoJ would make in the final version of the AGFS, having considered the views of respondents. The document explained the Government’s approach as follows:
The Government intends to proceed with a revised AGFS which is in large part the vision for reform we set out at consultation. However, following careful consideration of consultees’ views, we have adjusted our original proposals to ensure the scheme more accurately rewards ‘work done’, particularly for junior advocates.83
The final version of the scheme incorporated various amendments that had been suggested by the Bar Council and/or the CBA, including: increased standard appearance fees, with separate remuneration for each standard appearance (not limited to six in any one case); increased fees for PTPH and sentence hearings; and adjustments to the bandings/categories for particular offences.
55.As noted above, the MoJ had originally intended the revised AGFS to be cost neutral. However, its response to the consultation acknowledged that the increases to fees and other changes in the final version meant that “the scheme can no longer be considered ‘cost neutral’ against 2014–15 spend.” 84 The Final Stage Impact Assessment indicated that, when benchmarked against AGFS expenditure in 2014–15, expenditure under the planned new scheme would be £9 million higher.85 However, when benchmarked against expenditure for 2016/17, spend on the planned scheme is estimated to be £2 million less.
Difference between actual and modelled planned spend on AGFS, 2014/15 to 2016/17
Source: Table 9, Final Stage Impact Assessment on reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme. Ministry of Justice, February 2018
Response of the Criminal Bar to the final AGFS scheme
56.Notwithstanding the revisions that the MoJ made to the AFGS in the final version, the leadership of the CBA reacted to its publication by describing it as “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”.86 The CBA’s written submission explained that it considered three principal problems remained with the AGFS: 87
- The MoJ should not have taken a “cost neutral” approach nor should it have used the 2014/15 expenditure on AGFS (£213 million) as its baseline for expenditure on the new scheme, as this represents the lowest level of spend to date.
- The revised AGFS redistributes money from middle/senior junior barristers to the most junior barristers, and to a limited extent to QCs; however, benefits to junior barristers are modelled by the MoJ to be only 1% or 2% overall.
- There are no adequate mechanisms to reflect (a) the different levels of complexity of cases within the same category; for example, those with a large number of PPE or those with multiple victims and defendants (for example, the Rotherham and Oxford grooming cases); or (b) specialist skills required for dealing with vulnerable witnesses, children and the mentally unwell.
In her oral evidence to us, Angela Rafferty expanded on this final point:
At the moment, the criminal Bar as a whole is, effectively, training itself in how to deal with vulnerable witnesses—completely free, with no Government funding at all. It is being done at the weekend, using our experience and skill. [ … ] Far more cases are coming to court in relation to vulnerable witnesses. It takes a specialised approach, and it generates further hearings, such as ground rules hearings,88 which were not thought of when the initial [AGFS] scheme was incepted.89
57.In a similar vein, the Bar Council’s press statement responding to publication of the final version of the AGFS scheme referred to “real and pressing concerns about the viability and sustainability of practice for many at the Criminal Bar, and about whether the Bar will be able to continue to recruit and retain the practitioners needed to do this vital work for the future”. 90 It stated that there was no real increase in the money committed to the scheme, even though some of the fees would be higher than those originally proposed and some of the shortcomings in the consultation version of the scheme had been addressed. The statement concluded:
The Bar Council will continue to argue the Bar’s case for proper funding of the criminal justice system in all respects (including the provision of legal aid), not least so as to ensure that we can develop and preserve the quality of advocacy in our justice system.
58.The CBA’s written submission suggested that barristers undertaking criminal work are poorly remunerated,91 and that these limited income prospects have led to a recruitment crisis for the Criminal Bar, with prospective entrants already facing a high level of debt from university courses and from their professional training. The CBA also pointed to the uncertainty of a career at the Criminal Bar; for example, the unpredictability of criminal trials means that a barrister may make preparations for a trial that does not go ahead, or may find themselves unavailable on the day when one of their cases is listed, requiring a new barrister to prepare the case overnight; only exceptionally is the original barrister paid for their preparation work.
59.The Bar Council and the CBA also disputed the assertion in the MoJ’s final stage Impact Assessment that the new AGFS would increase legal aid expenditure by £9 million per year, and drew the attention of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of the House of Lords to their concerns about discrepancies in the Impact Assessment. The Committee’s subsequent report92 called on the Minister, Lucy Frazer QC MP, to explain these cost discrepancies. In response, the Ministry of Justice published additional tables to clarify the final stage Impact Assessment,93 modelling expenditure by different types of advocate and offence classification for the years 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 (the tables in the original Impact Assessment only considered expenditure for 2014/15).
60.We note that, on 8 May 2018, the House of Commons debated a motion in the name of the official opposition seeking to revoke the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 201894—the statutory vehicle through which the new AGFS would be introduced. Although the motion was defeated by 300 votes to 252, the debate presented an opportunity for Members to air concerns about the AGFS scheme, as well as wider concerns about the criminal justice system. It was suggested by some Members that the new AGFS might disincentivise lawyers from taking on complex cases; that the new scheme failed to recognise the increasing amount of evidential and unused material; and that it amounted to a cut, as opposed to being cost neutral. In response, other Members (including Sir Oliver Heald MP, the then Minister when the new AGFS scheme was agreed with the Bar) and the current Minister, Lucy Frazer QC MP, pointed out that the Bar leadership had been in favour of the AGFS proposals when consulted by the Ministry of Justice; that the new scheme treated members of the junior Bar more fairly; and that the final version of the scheme, which would be reviewed in 18 to 24 months’ time, was likely to give rise to an increase in expenditure.95
The Bar’s direct action and its impact
61.In the weeks that followed publication of the final version of the AGFS, there were extensive discussions between the Bar Council, the CBA, and Heads of Chambers. On Thursday 29 March, with the support of the Bar Council,96 the CBA announced the result of a poll of its membership;97 90% of those who voted said they wanted to take action “to secure proper investment in the Criminal Justice System.” The CBA requested its members to consider refusing any work under new legal aid representation orders dated from 1 April 2018 onwards, the implementation date of the reforms. The CBA also asked members to take part in targeted Days of Action to highlight the crisis in the criminal justice system. The statement was followed by the CBA’s proposals to the Ministry of Justice, which included:
- Suspension of the new AGFS scheme pending more detailed consultation as to its impact on the criminal bar and the wider Criminal Justice System.
- Greater investment in the more complex cases to allow remuneration for cases with a large volume of evidence (“paper heavy cases”)
- Commitment to a full, costed review of the scheme within 12 months against 2016/17 figures to ascertain whether it was under-funded.
- Commitment to an index linked increase in AGFS fees
62.Because it takes several weeks for new cases to come to trial, the call to decline new work had limited impact—although there were some reports of cases being delayed as a result of the strike action, including a murder case that was due to be heard at the Old Bailey.98 The submission we received from the CLSA also sets out examples of the effects of a lack of available Counsel on solicitors’ firms.99 On 9 May, the dispute was escalated by a further announcement by the CBA calling on barristers to consider stepping up their action by operating a “no returns” policy on all criminal cases from 25 May 2018—a move that was widely expected to be disruptive to the functioning of the criminal courts. The CBA’s announcement argued that remuneration levels were only part of the general crisis in the criminal justice system:
The crisis in court buildings [is] now well known. The conditions for all court users are completely unacceptable. This must change. We repeat that the poor and vulnerable in society are being denied access to justice due to the continued onslaught of cuts. Members of the public are at risk of miscarriages of justice and the faith of the public in the jury system is being undermined by the chaos in courts.100
63.We asked Angela Rafferty whether the action taken by barristers from 1 April had affected the conduct of trials. She responded:
The action was carefully calibrated to try to minimise disruption. Given the way listing works in relation to cases, it takes a while for trials to come through the system […] From my knowledge, no trial has as yet been disrupted to the extent that it cannot go ahead […] It is difficult for me to say how all barristers feel about it, but my body of members are highly committed professionals, and they are very concerned about the rule of law. As you will have seen from everything that we have written and published about this, no one wanted to take the action, and no one wanted it to escalate.101
64.Three weeks before we heard evidence from the Bar, we had taken oral evidence from Richard Miller of the Law Society and Daniel Bonich of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association. When we asked for comments on the AGFS dispute, Mr Bonich told us that that there was a lot of pressure being put on solicitors to help cases stay on track; and that he was aware of one case where a secretary conducted a sentencing hearing and another where someone received a life sentence without an advocate in court to represent them.102 He went on to say:
While I recognise why the Bar are engaged in the decision that they have taken, it has placed solicitors under a huge amount of strain. We are the client-facing part of the profession. We are the ones who have to explain to our clients why they do not have counsel, and that we have to try to guess how the particular court centre is going to deal with the issue. [ … ] In cases where firms have said, “We will send a paralegal or somebody similar,” the court has directed that a representative attend. That representative may then be put under pressure to conduct the hearing. That is a massive worry for our members.
65.Richard Miller pointed out that the Legal Aid Agency requires solicitors to maintain lists of approved counsel, and that “[i]t should be absolutely exceptional for a lawyer to instruct someone who is not on their list.” He also drew attention to solicitors’ professional obligation not to undertake work that is beyond their competence.103
66.We note that the CBA’s announcement prompted guidance to be issued by the Senior Presiding Judge on practical management of cases in the Crown Court that were affected by the Criminal Bar’s action.104 The guidance emphasised that a judge may explain the law, but may not give advice; that the judge may seek assistance from the Public Defender Service (PDS) to provide defence representation in legally-aided cases; and that a solicitor attending court for a pre-trial preparation hearing may be permitted to address the court.
The Ministry of Justice’s offer of additional funding
67.In the event, the CBA’s ‘no returns’ policy, scheduled to take effect from 25 May 2018, was not put into effect. On 24 May 2018, the Association announced that there had been a breakthrough in negotiations with the Ministry of Justice, resulting in an offer of £15 million additional investment in the AGFS; as a result of this development, the ‘no returns’ policy would be suspended until 12 June 2018 with immediate effect. 105 The details of the MoJ’s offer, on which the CBA would ballot its membership, were set out in the Association’s Monday Message of 29 May 2018. In summary:
- The additional investment of £15 million into the AGFS will be new investment from the Treasury: “[t]he money will not be reallocated from any other funding and no other agency will lose by our ‘gain’.”
- The first £8 million will be targeted towards the categories of case that lose heavily following the abolition of PPE as a proxy for calculating how much is paid to an advocate under the AGFS (fraud, drug and sex cases with high page counts).
- £4.5 million will be targeted towards the fees of junior barristers. It is envisaged that these funds would be utilized in a negotiated way to reflect career progression and sustainability for juniors.
- There will be a 1% increase in April 2019 across all fees.
- The planned review of the scheme will then take place within 18 months.
- The financial offer represents around 5.5% of the overall AGFS budget, plus an extra 1% in April 2019.106
68.The CBA’s ballot of its membership had been announced on 24 May 2018; in the morning of 12 June 2018, just before the start of our evidence session with the Bar Council and the CBA, the result of the ballot was announced:
The Criminal Bar has very narrowly voted to accept the AGFS proposal made by the government. 3038 barristers voted, a massive turn out. 1566 (51.55%) voted to accept and 1472 (48.45%) voted to reject. Whilst the majority wishes to accept the proposal it cannot be said that the anger and disillusionment has gone away. Indeed, it is exceptionally strong. The Criminal Bar is not going to be quiet.
The CBA’s statement described the outcome as “neither a defeat nor a victory.” The announcement concluded by saying: “the Criminal Bar has faced degradation and despair and it still does. This is a step forward. We must all ensure we do not take any more steps back.”107
69.At the oral evidence session immediately after the announcement had been made, we asked Angela Rafferty whether she thought the junior Bar had done better from the settlement than, say, those who are of 10 years’ call.108 Ms Rafferty responded:
The details of the proposal have yet to be worked out, but we were concentrating on three areas in relation to this investment: first, to plug a gap that we identified in relation to those who do very complex cases with high evidence turnover; a second tranche of money in relation to the junior Bar, which we are hoping will ameliorate the situation for them; and then the 1% in April. [ … ] We do not want it just to benefit one level of the Bar, but it would be right for you to know that the level of the Bar that it does benefit, in the middle, were the real losers. Some people were losing 30% of their income almost overnight in the scheme.
Andrew Walker went on to explain:
For those who voted in favour or against, no one was voting on the basis of its being a permanent or long-term solution; it is a patch repair. There is unanimity across the Bar about all the factors that drove the action. The result of the vote is really just a decision about what to do at this point in time.
70.When we asked the witnesses whether, now the MoJ offer had been accepted, the dispute had been resolved, they emphasised that the Bar’s underlying concerns had not gone away and that the narrow margin of the CBA members’ ballot indicated that, if things did not move in the right direction, there would be renewed willingness to take action.109 Ms Rafferty told us:
It has not been a dispute just about pay. It is a dispute about many and much wider things. [ … ]I do not think it has been resolved, but there is now some time to resolve it. There are also some signs that we can work together, possibly cross-party, to resolve it. That is what we would like to do if we can.110
71.After we had taken evidence from the Bar Council and the CBA, we received a written submission from Daniel Bonich, Vice-Chair of the CLSA. The submission described the MoJ’s offer of additional funding for the AGFS as “good news for our members”, given the pressures they had faced because of the action taken by the Bar. However, his submission raised two concerns relating to the MoJ’s offer. First, the amount of money made available “is still very small and given the pressure of inflation is little more than a patch repair”. The second concern was that solicitors’ associations, including the Law Society, “did not take part in the discussions with the Ministry as they were not invited to do so.” Mr Bonich expressed particular disappointment in this regard, “as for some types of work up to 40% of Crown Court advocacy is now conducted by solicitor advocates and paid under this scheme.” However, his Association did have a meeting arranged with MoJ at which they hoped they would be able to make their position clear on the AGFS.
The future of the AGFS
72.Both Angela Rafferty and Andrew Walker confirmed that, notwithstanding the settlement, they considered that unresolved issues remained within the AGFS. Mr Walker explained that the aim behind the new scheme was to achieve greater graduation of fees, providing a career path that allowed junior barristers “to go right the way up the ladder.” However, the need to provide proxies for the degree of case complexity and the barrister’s level of skill was problematic; in particular, he thought that the current scheme made insufficient allowance for cases that were evidence-heavy or for more serious cases. On the AGFS fixed fee model, he commented:
We are talking about everything from the most straightforward assault cases to the most complex multi-complainant serious sexual offences cases, gang murders and so on. There is a very wide range of cases. In any fixed fee scheme, there will be compromises. The problem, we feel, is that there were certainly too many compromises with the previous scheme, and there are still too many compromises.111
73.Mr Walker accepted that there were difficulties in predicting the mix of cases in the Crown Court in future years, which “inevitably means that you are modelling based on historical information.”112 He told us that, while the number of Crown Court cases is falling, their complexity is increasing and they involve a lot of evidence—for example, historical sexual offences cases.113 He went on to suggest to us that the “swings and roundabouts” model did not necessarily accommodate the fact that more senior junior barristers were doing the more difficult cases, “so you need to make sure that the swings and roundabouts work on those more difficult cases;” he thought that this would require the MoJ to increase its analytical capacity.114 Ms Rafferty suggested that an hourly paid model might be fairer for more complex cases:
I personally would like to see some sort of mechanism whereby those who do serious and intense work on such cases as we were discussing a minute ago could be paid on an hourly basis, or something like that. That would be fairer.115
74.We consider it regrettable that the Criminal Bar felt compelled to take direct action in response to the new Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, given the potential for adverse impact on defendants and complainants, as well as on the functioning of the courts. However, the underlying reasons for the dispute can be understood, including the failure to ensure that fees keep pace with inflation, the staged fee reductions from April 2010 onwards, unhappiness about aspects of the revised AGFS and the Criminal Bar’s genuine and heartfelt concerns about the future of their profession and under-funding of the criminal justice system.
75.While we welcome the Government’s decision to offer additional funding for the AGFS and the Criminal Bar’s decision to accept the offer, we do not believe that ending this specific dispute has resolved the underlying issues and it is clear that many barristers remain deeply unhappy about their situation and about the future of the criminal justice system.
76.We acknowledge the challenges facing the Ministry of Justice in reworking the AGFS so that it is fair to advocates at all levels of seniority, and in ensuring that it is future-proofed against inevitable changes in the profile of Crown Court cases. We also recognise that the Ministry of Justice has made genuine efforts to address the concerns of the Criminal Bar. To provide for ongoing collaboration with the legal profession on refinements to the AGFS, we recommend that, without any further delay, a system of annual review be built into the AGFS, overseen by a panel which incorporates representatives from the Criminal Bar and solicitor organisations, alongside Government representatives. The panel’s remit should include considering the inter-dependency between the AGFS and the LGFS, and the impact of changing the former on the operation of the latter.
67 Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme. Ministry of Justice, 5 January 2017, paragraph 1.3
68 Ibid
70 Ibid paragraphs 3 to 5
71 Annex 4 of the MoJ consultation paper maps individual offences onto categories and bands, while Annex 3 contains worked examples.
72 A conference refers to an advocate’s attendance away from the court on the accused or an expert witness; a view refers to an advocate’s visit to the scene of the alleged crime.
73 Standard appearances had previously been bundled into the basic graduated fee.
74 A cracked trial is a trial that has been listed for a not guilty hearing on a particular day but does not proceed, either because the defendant pleads guilty to the whole or part of the indictment, or an alternative charge, or because the prosecution offers no evidence.
75 An ineffective trial is one that is not ready on the day when it is due to start, and is relisted for a later date.
76 However, in drugs cases the threshold would be 15,000 PPE and in dishonesty cases 30,000 PPE.
77 “New AGFS plan will mean fairer pay for advocates”, 5 January 2017
79 Bar Council response to the “Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme” consultation paper, March 2017.
80 Reform the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme IA No: MoJ033/2016, paragraph 69. Ministry of Justice, January 2017.
81 The Response of the Criminal Bar Association of England & Wales to the Consultation on Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, 2017.
82 Reforming the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme: Government Response. Ministry of Justice, 23 February 2018
83 Ibid, Executive summary, paragraph 3
84 Ibid, paragraph 4.23
85 Table 9, Reform the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme IA No: MoJ033/2016. Ministry of Justice, February 2018
88 Ground Rules hearings may be used to establish how vulnerable witnesses will be enabled to give their best evidence.
91 According to the CBA, in 2014/15 the median gross income of criminal barristers most engaged in criminal work was £56,000, without allowing for deductions and expenses such as chambers’ fees; this equates to a pre-tax salary of £28,000.
92 Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee Twenty First Report of Session 2017–19, 8 March 2018 - HL Paper 88
98 “Murder case first to be hit by barrister action”, Law Gazette, 4 April 2018
102 Q77. Further details of both cases were provided to us in the CLSA’s written submission [AID0001].
104 Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme Dispute - note from the Senior Presiding Judge, the Rt Hon Lady Justice Macur
108 A would-be barrister is eligible to be “called to the Bar” by one of the Inns of Court when they have completed the Bar Professional Training Course and completed some additional training.
Published: 26 July 2018