Mills: Whole lot more to be done
Chambers are focusing their efforts to improve racial diversity on recruitment rather than progression or retention, a Bar Council report has found.
It said just 8.7% of respondents to a survey said they were not taking any action on race inequality in the wake of last year’s Race at the Bar report.
However, only 67 of 322 chambers responded and, in an update report published yesterday, the Bar Council said “the reality across the Bar may be higher as it is likely those who responded were more likely to be taking the opportunity to report on their successes”.
Race at the Bar concluded that the time for talking about race inequality at the Bar was over and all organisations with a stake in the profession should set specific targets for improvement. It identified four key areas: access, retention, progression, and culture.
The Bar Council said nine out of 10 chambers had adopted at least one of the recommendations from the report. A third had taken action across all four areas.
A large majority (83%) of respondents had worked on improving access to the profession.
The most common activities were targeted work experience or mini-pupillages, policy revision (particularly recruitment), mentoring, training and outreach to schools and universities, and taking steps to improve diversity on recruitment panels.
Of those involved in providing work experience, 17 chambers were participating in the 10,000 Black Interns initiative, while 12 were working with diversity charity Bridging the Bar.
After recruitment, the next most popular area of activity was creating a more inclusive culture, with 78% of chambers taking action.
Activities ranged from training on race awareness and anti-racism to policy creation and reviews, particularly on bullying and harassment, cultural events and wellbeing support.
Fewer than half of chambers took action on progression (49%) or retention (46%).
The Bar Council urged chambers to take action on distribution of work and bullying and harassment, where research demonstrated women from ethnic minority backgrounds were earning the least and were most likely to be subjected to bullying, discrimination and harassment.
There was no specific question on setting diversity targets and only 13 chambers (19% of respondents) mentioned them. “This is clearly an area for more work,” the Bar Council said, explaining that it encouraged target setting to ensure chambers maintained focus on making “tangible” changes.
The most common obstacles for chambers were lack of human resource and lack of time.
The Bar Council said: “We found that chambers who had more success with initiatives were those who spread the workload between members and, where possible, employed staff or engaged the assistance of external consultants to take forward some of the work, such as race equality audits, training, or policy reviews.”
Barbara Mills KC and Simon Regis, co-chairs of the Bar Council race working group, commented: “There is much to celebrate in this interim progress report and some great examples of good practice, but there’s a whole lot more to be done.
“Action so far has focused on access to the profession, but we will be failing if we don’t simultaneously ensure all ethnic minority barristers have equal access to quality work, progression opportunities and an environment free from discrimination.”
Bar Council chair Mark Fenhalls KC added: “This interim progress report shows just how seriously the Bar has taken the clear message of the Race at the Bar report that action needs to happen at every level.
“We know how busy chambers and individuals have been over the last year so it’s very positive to see that 90% of respondents have taken forward at least one recommendation. But the work must not stop here.
“We want those who have taken action to help spread their good practice to support and collaborate with others. And we want those who haven’t yet started to pick just one or two actions.”
Along with the other findings, the progress report included the latest diversity statistics on KCs and pupillages.
This showed that, as of 1 November 2022, the number of Black male KCs had risen from 17 to 19, and Black female KCs from five to eight. The number of Asian male KCs increased from 60 to 69, and female from 17 to 24.
Meanwhile, 11% of those applying for pupillage through the Pupillage Gateway – but only 3% of those who received an offer – were Black. For Asian candidates, the figures were 21% and 11% respectively, and 4% and 3.4% for those with mixed ethnic backgrounds.
White candidates made up 53% of the applicants but received 72% of the offers.
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