New research shows that government legal panels are 'disproportionately white', the Bar Council has said, calling for new measures to widen the pool from which panels are recruited. 

Approximately one quarter of the self-employed bar (3,267 barristers) is employed by panels such as the Attorney General’s Civil Panels, Treasury Counsel and CPS Advocate Panels. But by matching publicly available lists of panel members with the council's membership records, the regulator found that: 

  • 'An unmistakable lack of ethnic diversity', with the makeup of government panels is 'disproportionately white'. Membership of the bar as a whole is largely representative of the ethnic composition of the population in England and Wales.
  • Disproportionate representation becomes worse at higher levels: only three out 77 panel silks are from ethnic minority backgrounds. 
  • KC panels have no black barristers or Asian women barristers, and only very few Asian men. Although white women are well represented on panels (and over-represented at KC level, making up over a quarter of panel silks), they do not always get equal access to the best quality work available. 

The Bar Council said it believes that panels should more closely reflect the makeup of the bar and the public. Bar chair Mark Fenhalls KC said: 'The findings of this report act as a stark reminder that work still needs to be done to ensure equality of opportunity at the bar. Government legal panels have a key role to play to ensure that career advancement is open to all.' 

 

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