CPS funds training

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has launched a law scholarship scheme to help clerical and administrative staff qualify as lawyers.

The scheme will provide 1.5 million worth of funding a year, for the next three years, for CPS staff to qualify as either solicitors or barristers.

It offers 100% bursaries for course fees and expenses, and time off work to study for the qualifications.

Launching the scheme, Solicitor-General Harriet Harman said it would help broaden access to the profession.

'To become a lawyer, course fees alone will cost 13,500, and these scholarships will give individuals a chance to enter into a profession which they would never otherwise have been able to,' she said.

'The legal profession needs to broaden and diversify, and it needs to be open to people from all walks of life.'

She added that the CPS would benefit from employing lawyers who - having been administrative or clerical assistants - knew the court system and processes intimately.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir David Calvert-Smith QC, said the scholarship scheme also made economic sense for the CPS.

'The cost of advertising and recruiting lawyers for the service is very high, and this money would be saved if we train our own and promote from within,' he said.

Victoria MacCallum