The BSB plays a key role in protecting the public in England and Wales. We do this by authorising barristers and assessing their suitability to practise, setting the standards by which they operate and acting where appropriate when they fail to meet these standards. We also actively promote an effective barrister market, using our regulatory functions to improve competition, access to affordable services and high-quality justice for consumers.
The BSB is preparing to launch a five-year strategy, a comprehensive plan for the regulation of the barrister profession into the 2030s. The strategy will detail the BSB’s priorities for the years ahead, offering a clear roadmap of how we plan to deliver our functions to support our objectives.
Gathering insights and evidence
To support us, we invite our stakeholders, including consumers, barristers and other groups, to contribute their insights and evidence. This feedback will help us build a strategy that is informed, inclusive and impactful, supporting a profession that delivers for consumers and the public interest. This is an opportunity to inform our emerging thinking. We will consult on a draft strategy later in the year.
Please contribute via our online form. A summary and a more detailed outline of our early thinking can be found on our website.
The deadline for responses is Wednesday 9 April 2025.
Our approach to strategy
At the BSB, we set a strategy to guide our work and the benefits we want to achieve over time. We believe a strong strategy is forward-looking, based on evidence, and built on collaboration. To ensure we regulate barristers effectively into the 2030s, we will take a thorough, stakeholder-driven approach and consult with a range of people, capturing interests as we shape the strategy.
An important first step is to gather feedback, insights and evidence. We will combine this with other engagement directed at specific stakeholders, to allow us better to understand the key issues that matter most. Once gathered, we will complete a summary of feedback, which will highlight the main themes, concerns and suggestions. Where possible, this feedback will be shared publicly.
We will then prepare a draft strategy on which we will consult in late 2025. The initiation of the substantive strategy will commence in April 2026.
The next year – transitioning to the new strategy
The period until 2026 will be pivotal for the BSB. It comes at a time of significant change for us, as we seek to build upon our current strategy, which has focused on enhancing performance, particularly in the timeliness of our operational activities.
These initiatives have culminated in our ambitious reform programme, which will support the BSB in being more proactive and consumer focused, modernising our delivery, and increasing the capability of our people. Embedding these reforms will be a key focus for the next year. More information on our reforms is available here [link].
Alongside this, we will be consulting stakeholders extensively on our emerging thinking on our strategic approach and the outcomes that we will seek to achieve. This will involve direct and comprehensive engagement with consumers.
We will carry out important research and insights work that will guide our approach to our strategy and beyond. A major focus will be new consumer research and a wider market study that we will be conducting in 2025-26, both of which will provide critical insights to shape our approach into the 2030s.
The rationale for this reform programme is:
- In the past, our primary focus (originally delegated by the Bar Council) was as a conduct regulator, focused on gatekeeping and discipline.
- These remain very important, but in carrying our regulatory functions, we also have to have regard to the wider public interest objectives set out in the Legal Services Act 2007.
- Accordingly, in the last three years we have sought to improve our operations, but also to make an impact on how well the barrister market serves consumers: our work on transparency, on chambers and on equality are all examples.
- The BSB is interested both in the professional and ethical standards of individual barristers, but also in how barristers, acting together through chambers and other associations, affect the market.
Our Reform Programme therefore addresses both our analytical and our delivery capacity. It also, importantly, focuses on the engagement of the people who are key to the BSB’s success.
The Reform Programme has the following aims:
- proactive, consumer-focused regulation anchored in a much deeper, intelligence-based understanding of the market we regulate;
- modernised delivery for operational excellence: this will enable us to continue to improve our public protection responsibilities and deliver our gatekeeping, supervision and enforcement functions efficiently and responsively with no loss of quality; and
- engaged, agile and committed people, including through a reform designed to clarify accountabilities, to empower our people and to increase our efficiency.
The full plans for the year ahead will be detailed in our Business Plan for 2025-26.
