The Bar regulator has indicated that it will seek alternative ways of improving advocacy standards while it waits for progress on existing plans.

The Bar Standards Board said this week that it remains uncertain when the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) will be implemented.

The Court of Appeal ruled last year that the scheme is lawful, but that decision is likely to be appealed in the Supreme Court.

The BSB has confirmed the country’s highest court has yet to reach a decision on whether to allow the claimants to appeal against the existing ruling.

In the meantime, the BSB said its board has ‘decided we should explore other ways in which we can properly protect the public from poor standards of advocacy’.

The criminal bar has argued that QASA is not necessary or appropriate and warned that judicial assessment of advocates – one of the key aspects of the new scheme – risks undermining their independence or the perception of their independence.

But legal regulators have refused to back down on plans that were first approved as long ago as 2011.

The oversight regulator the Legal Services Board said that the appeal court’s ruling last October demonstrated that the scheme was valid and that regulators had followed proper processes.

LSB chairman Sir Mike Pitt said advocates should ‘expect to have the competence of their work assessed and be seen to be assessed’. The Legal Services Consumer Panel urged the opponents to accept the ruling and allow swift implementation of the scheme.