The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has today published its annual report, Diversity of the BSB Workforce and Board Members 2023. It follows the publication of the Diversity at the Bar Report 2022, which showed that the Bar continues to become more diverse and more representative of the society that it serves but women and barristers from minoritised ethnic backgrounds remain underrepresented at the most senior levels of the Bar.
In taking forward its regulatory objectives, including to promote a diverse Bar, the BSB aims to lead by example. The Diversity of BSB Workforce and Board Members report demonstrates the BSB’s commitment to meeting its equality duties in every aspect of its work, in line with the Equality and Diversity Strategy 2022-2025.
The data were captured on 1 December 2023, with people data deriving from an anonymous and voluntary survey, and data relating to Board members being collected and analysed annually. This is the same capture date for the data used for the previous year’s report.
The data collected from the workforce and Board members cover all the characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act 2010 (except for pregnancy and maternity, and marriage and civil partnership) in addition to information about caring responsibilities and social mobility. These are the same data that the BSB collects about barristers.
For the eleven Board members of the BSB the key findings of the report are:
- Four members were female, and seven members were male.
- Two members were aged “35-54”, seven members were in the “55-64” range, and the remaining Board members were aged 65+.
- Eight members were from a White background. The remaining members were from another ethnic group.
For BSB people, meaning employees as opposed to Board members, of which there were 104 at the time the data were captured, the key findings of the report are:
- 59 per cent of our workforce was White, compared to 83.2 per cent of the UK working age population. The proportion of our workforce who are from a minority ethnic background is significantly higher than the proportion of people in the working age population of England and Wales who are from a minority ethnic background.
- 41 per cent of our workforce was from a minority ethnic background. This is two percentage points higher than that seen in December 2022 and compares to an estimate of 16.7 per cent of the working age population in England and Wales as of April-June 2023.
- The proportion of our workforce who are female has remained unchanged, at 74 per cent: This compares to an estimate of 50.2 per cent of the UK working age (16-64) population.
- Three per cent of our workforce declared a disability. This is a decrease of one percentage point from 2022.
- 13 per cent of our workforce selected “Bisexual/ Gay or Lesbian/ Another sexuality”, which is unchanged year on year. This compares to an estimate of four per cent of the UK population aged 16 and over identifying as one of Bisexual, Gay or Lesbian or another sexual orientation as of 2022.
The report also contains comparative statistics for senior and junior staff at the BSB and it includes findings that compared to more junior staff those in senior grades at the BSB (in job levels 1-4) were more likely to be older, to be White (56 per cent compared to 35 per cent), to be male (30 per cent compared to 19 per cent), to have been independently educated and not to be in the first generation in their family to have attended university.
You can read the full Diversity of the BSB Workforce and Board Members 2023 report on our website.
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About the Bar Standards Board
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