Monday Message 17.02.25
THE CBA NATIONAL SURVEY
We know that Criminal Barristers are working exceptionally hard. In robing rooms across England and Wales we hear and understand your frustration, anger and exhaustion. However, in order for things to change, we need the Government, the Judiciary and the public to hear your collective voices. The government needs to understand what is happening within our profession in order to properly focus its resources and to ensure that there is a Criminal Bar to prosecute and defend the most serious cases. If we do not provide the government with reliable data that it can analyse and act upon, then it will be difficult for us to challenge or criticise the decisions that they make.
In order to have clarity as to your concerns, your career plans and your practices we have commissioned a National Survey for Criminal Barristers who remain within the profession. This survey will assist us, moving forward, to negotiate with additional strength on our collective behalf. We would urge all Criminal Barristers who remain in practice in England and Wales to complete the survey, whether members of the CBA or not, whether employed or self-employed, whether 10% or 100% of their practice is criminal work. We anticipate that the results will receive significant public interest.
We appreciate that a response to this survey will take about ten minutes of your time, and we understand that time is precious, but please do complete this survey and urge your colleagues to do so that we can be best informed as to the real position of the Criminal Bar, not the political spin that every agency chooses to put on the figures it has. You may be put off by the large number of questions at the beginning which deal with age, gender and protected characteristics. This is where our professional statistician tells us that they must be. Please bear with the process. These will not take long to answer. Please do continue and complete the survey. We do need the answers to these questions to properly shape long-term planning so that we can ensure that the Criminal Bar does all that it can to attract and to retain the brightest and best. We need to understand how to improve the gender pay gap, the ethnic minority pay gap and how to protect all our members from discrimination. All answers remain confidential.
We need a response from you all because it will be inevitable that the CPS and MOJ will dismiss our requests if there is a limited response to the survey. If we have a high response rate to the survey, as we did for the RASSO survey, the government agencies cannot ignore or sideline the results. Attempts to reduce the significant concerns raised in the RASSO survey focussed on the fact that we had not used a professional statistician and that the statistics therefore had less value. As a result, to avoid any such attempt to minimise the impact of the results, we have employed an expert statistician who the government have used in the past and applauded. This CBA National Survey has been prepared by Professor Katrin Hohl. We are extremely grateful for her professional input and hard work. The survey will be repeated annually or bi-annually depending upon need.
The CBA group who worked on the survey were led by the CBA Vice Chair, Riel Karmy-Jones KC who has ensured that voices from all sections of the Criminal Bar have been heard when the questions were put together. Special thanks go to Riel Karmy-Jones KC, to Mark Watson and Chloe Ashley. The survey was stress-tested by a group of practitioners who provided us with helpful assistance to whom we express our gratitude. They were Andrew Thomas KC, James Gray, Eleanor Mawrey, Paramjit Ahluwalia, Sally Hobson, and James Oliveira-Agnew.
The survey can be accessed here and is open until March 3rd 2025.
Please complete the survey and encourage other practitioners who undertake some work in crime to do so.
Reasons for the National Survey
We know that despite the fact that there are large numbers of Criminal Barristers on the lists to prosecute cases, many cases are still having to be adjourned because there is no one available to prosecute them. Whilst the wait for the most recent statistics continues, we know that in the first nine months of 2024 there were 903 cases which had to be adjourned because an advocate was missing. Of those, 537 were prosecution advocates. The cases without an advocate included violence and sexual offences. Without significant investment in us this will only get worse. Criminal Barristers are hanging on to see if this new government means what it says about fixing the broken Criminal Justice System and valuing the Criminal Barristers within it.
Warned List Cases
We are grateful to everyone who has written to tell us of the difficulties that this system of working has for retention and recruitment at the Criminal Bar. Please do continue to send us evidence of examples of the devastation that warned lists cause. This week we received this moving email from one of our Junior members which demonstrates the severe pressures that this listing practice has on the Junior Bar. “Bar members do not come to this job to make endless money. We come because we love our work, have pride in our work, are excellent advocates and want to make a difference. If my example is anything to go by, we will see swathes of practitioners leave the Bar in the next few months to go and earn a living on secondment, behind a desk or a laptop doing disclosure work. I know this is something I will hate, but I am of the view that it is better to know we will get paid at the end of every month rather than hearing the words, ‘We are sorry, Counsel, but this case cannot be accommodated because…..’ anymore.”
MOJ Meetings
We are currently having fortnightly meetings with senior officials in the MOJ as to the difficulties caused by the current AGFS schemes and potential means of improving the system. We are extremely grateful to Richard Christie KC, Neil Hawes KC, Nick Barraclough, Vincent Scully, Emily Calman and Daniel Oscroft who have been working tirelessly on this project.
HMCTS Statistics
The management team at HMCTS have worked collaboratively with us to drill down into reasons for ineffective trials, the Court Centres which have the highest and lowest rates and the reasons for them. These statistics, which will soon be available publicly, will help all agencies to consider the best methods of reducing the backlog, moving forward.
CILEX
We were very grateful that Kian Hearnshaw and Steve Rollason from CILEX took the trouble to meet with us and to consider our areas of agreement and disagreement on a wide range of issues which affect us all. We look forward to working collaboratively with them in the months ahead.
SIKH LAWYERS’ ASSOCIATION:
On the 22nd February 2025 at 1200-1600 the SLA are running an annual pupillage mock interview session at 1MCB Chambers, 44 Southampton Buildings in London.
They require some volunteers to assist them with mock interviews. If you are able to assist please contact [email protected].
Yours,
Mary Prior KC
Chair of The Criminal Bar Association.