The Civil Justice Council should have more ‘users’ of justice and fewer lawyers among its members, an independent review has recommended.

Jonathan Spencer’s review, published this week by the Ministry of Justice, says the concept of the council is sound, and commends its ‘essential mediating role’ in resolving disputes over conditional fee arrangements and other costs issues.

However, the body, set up in 1997 to advise ministers and senior judges on reforms to the justice system, needs to ‘take a sharper and more strategic focus on the needs of users, rather than what has sometimes been seen to be essentially a compilation of… personal enthusiasms’.

This would involve doubling the user representation on the 25-strong council, to around 50% of its membership.

Justice minister Bridget Prentice said the government accepted ‘the broad thrust of the recommendations’.

Robert Musgrove, the council’s chief executive, welcomed the review, which he said would inform a new stage in the body’s existence. ‘For the past seven years we’ve been very practical, working in the trenches. It’s perhaps time to do a bit more horizon-gazing,’ he said.