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31 March 2017

The barristers' regulator, the Bar Standards Board (BSB), has today published its 2017-18 Business Plan, setting out the key areas of work it will undertake in the new financial year.

As this will be the second annual plan to be published as part of the BSB's current three-year strategy, the focus within the plan is on continuing with the work already started. Priorities for 2017-18 include:

• responding with the other legal regulators to the recent market study by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into the supply of legal services in England and Wales;
• beginning to implement Future Bar Training reforms;
• continuing to implement recommendations to improve the experiences of young people who are the subject of proceedings in the Youth Courts, and the standards of advocacy that they receive; and
• carrying out further modernisation of the disciplinary system for barristers, including consulting on changing the standard of proof used in disciplinary tribunals.

BSB Chair, Sir Andrew Burns said: "Our Business Plan describes our core regulatory activities and sets out our priorities for the year ahead. Over the last twelve months, we have made good progress against each of the strategic themes that we identified as part of our three-year strategy. But we recognise that further work is needed in 2017-18 and that what we need to do is becoming ever more complex. Despite this, thanks to even greater efficiency in our operations, I am pleased to confirm that our expenditure for the year ahead is budgeted to be the same as last year."

You can read the 2017-18 Business Plan here.

ENDS

Notes to editors

About the Bar Standards Board

Our mission is to regulate barristers and specialised legal services businesses in England and Wales in the public interest. For more information about what we do visit: http://bit.ly/1gwui8t

About our strategic plan for 2016-19

Our work over this time period is organised into three programmes:

• Regulating in the public interest;

• Supporting those we regulate to face the future; and

• Ensuring that there is a strong and sustainable regulatory function for the Bar.

You can read more about what we do and how we do it on our website.

Contact: For all media enquiries call: 0207 611 1452 or email press@barstandardsboard.org.uk.