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The launch of the controversial quality assurance scheme for criminal advocates is likely to be delayed, the Joint Advocacy Group has announced. “Some adjustments” to the scheme are likely “to ensure that there are not unintended consequences”.

The Bar has launched a last-ditch bid to focus the criminal advocates’ quality assurance scheme on judicial evaluation and steer it away from the alternative assessment centre route favoured by solicitors. Despite lobbying from solicitor groups, the SRA has confirmed its support for the scheme.

The Law Society is wrong to suggest there is no evidence of a quality problem in criminal advocacy – according to one of the academics who produced it. Professor Richard Moorhead said there were failures “unparalleled in any assessment of lawyer quality in which I have been involved”.

The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority today called for talks with a senior judge over concerns about the role of judges in assessing the quality of criminal law advocates.