Baroness Blackstone’s blog

                                                                                       

During the first quarter of 2020, we will be issuing a “Regulatory Return” questionnaire to a selected group of chambers and entities, including some sole-practitioners.

The Regulatory Return is a way for us to assess risk across the Bar and general levels of compliance with our rules within barristers’ practices. It is an exercise we last undertook in 2015, when it was known as the “Supervision Return”.

If you are selected, the Return will ask you a number of questions about how risks across your practice are managed. These include questions about your governance, your risk management, equality and diversity, client services and financial management. We have tried not to make the Return too onerous to complete and you will have a number of weeks to collate your responses and submit a final version of the return to us electronically.

Only those practices selected to complete the 2020 Regulatory Return will need to do so. We will write to you soon if your practice has been selected. You can read more about the 2020 Regulatory Return in our online version of this month’s Regulatory Update.

Please do not forget about the new Bar transparency rules which came into force earlier this year. There is an implementation period until January 2020. The rules are designed to help consumers better understand the price and service they will receive from barristers and place various requirements on your practice depending on the services it offers. We have recently produced a short video to help you comply with the new transparency rules which you can view below.

Lastly, we have appointed AlphaPlus, an independent research company, to carry out an evaluation of our Future Bar Training (FBT) reforms. This evaluation will of course take place over a number of years as the reforms take effect but we will shortly begin this process by sending out online surveys which will help us set a baseline as to where we are now aimed at both training organisations and trainees. You can read more about this on our website. Please do look out for your opportunity to help us evaluate FBT.

New Regulatory Return to be issued in 2020

Conducting a Regulatory Return with those whom we regulate is part of our risk-based approach to regulation which you can read more about on our website. The focus of the 2020 Regulatory Return will be on the aspects of our regulation which are likely to have the biggest impact on consumers if things were to go wrong in any particular barrister’s practice.

The information we receive from you will help us direct our regulatory attention in the future to where it is most needed. The Return is not about looking to catch anyone out.

If we do identify anything specific within a practice which gives us cause for concern as a result of the Returns we receive, then we will, wherever possible, work collaboratively with that practice to make sure things are put right. The action we take will vary depending on the results of our assessment of your Return. We may make recommendations, set actions to be completed within a certain timeframe, or, in some cases, conduct a visit to your practice.  

The feedback we received from the 2015 Return was positive and many of those selected told us that they found the whole process very helpful, because it helped them to manage risks within the practice more effectively.

If you are selected this time, then we hope that you will take your time to provide comprehensive answers to the questions we ask as this will be of benefit both to you and to us. Details of how to complete the 2020 Regulatory Return and how we will make ourselves available to help you, will be communicated to the selected practices when we issue the Return questionnaire next year. 

Can you help us to evaluate Future Bar Training?

This summer we appointed AlphaPlus, an independent research company, to carry out an evaluation of the Future Bar Training reforms. This evaluation will run for at least four years and will involve evaluating both the implementation of the reforms, as well as the extent to which the reforms have succeeded in meeting their objectives.

As part of the data collection for this project we will shortly be sending out online surveys on behalf of AlphaPlus aimed at both training organisations and trainees. Collecting information at this stage of the implementation of the reforms is vital for the evaluation process – it enables the evaluation to gather baseline information from the period before the reforms are fully implemented, as well as collect valuable information on the views of those affected on how the reforms are being implemented. Any information you provide to AlphaPlus will be used confidentially and reported anonymously and will be used only for the purposes of this evaluation.