We welcome the review and agree that the root causes of bullying and harassment at the Bar lie in culture and the power imbalances inherent in relationships between pupils and supervisors and between senior and junior barristers.
The closeness of the relationships that underpin the professional advancement of barristers and can lead to exploitation and inhibit the reporting of misconduct because those who experience bullying or harassment fear that their careers will be de-railed. At the Bar Standards Board we need to better support witnesses who have the courage to come forward and make reports.
Mark Neale, Director General, The Bar Standards Board said:
“The report shows that the Bar must act now to make the culture change necessary to address bullying, discrimination and harassment. It’s unacceptable that the profession lacks a supportive and safe environment for all barristers and pupils. We have been wholly supportive of this review. We also know we need to do better ourselves.
We recognise the concerns that the report raises, and we are already implementing changes, and consulting where necessary, to improve our enforcement processes. We must also provide more support to those with the courage to come forward and make reports. We fully accept that pupils and barristers will be much more willing to come forward to report harassment if they are confident that they will be sensitively supported through a robust and transparent enforcement process with no unnecessary delay.
We will now fully review the findings and recommendations and work with the profession and other stakeholders to help improve the culture at the Bar.”
Notes to editors
The Bar Standards Board is already taking forward a Reform Programme which will improve the speed and responsiveness of our enforcement process. Specifically:
- We have re-designed our enforcement process to accelerate cases, including those of bullying and harassment, and are currently consulting on changes to our regulations to give full effect to this re-design. We are already seeing progressive improvements in the speed of case handling and, once regulation and supporting system changes are fully in effect from January 2027, we expect 80% of our investigations to be completed within 25 weeks.
- We are also consulting on changes to the Disciplinary Tribunals Regulations to give the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service greater power to manage cases and so cut delays at the Tribunal stage. Subject to consultation, these powers will come into full effect from January 2027.
- We are taking a range of actions better to support witnesses in cases involving bullying and harassment. These include:
- the introduction of a victim support service which is already available;
- the introduction later this year of training for our enforcement teams on a trauma-led approach to regulatory enforcement.
- consultation on a change to our regulations to provide that witnesses in cases in sexual harassment cases should have an automatic presumption of anonymity.
- These steps supplement the regular training already provided to our teams on handling allegations of sexual harassment and on supporting vulnerable witnesses.
In May 2025 we submitted a written response to the Rt Hon Harriet Harman’s Independent Review of Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Harassment at the Bar.
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