The Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board (BSB) have today published the first full edition of “Bar Barometer”, an annual report produced by the Research Department setting out statistical trends within the Bar.

Intended to help the Bar Council and BSB to develop and implement policies which are relevant to barristers, the Bar Barometer is also intended to act as a source of statistical information for those with an interest in the Bar with each edition will have a different focus – the first edition dealing with statistics on pupillage over the period 2006-2011.

As a result of feedback received from the pilot edition issued last March, the report now provides information about the profile of practitioners by age and disability and for the first time includes the composition of employed Queen’s Counsel by gender and ethnicity.

Chairman of the Bar, Michael Todd QC, said:

“The publication of our annual Bar Barometer report to examine statistical trends within the Bar will help to ensure that the Bar Council’s efforts focus on initiatives which will directly benefit our members. In terms of composition of and retention at the Bar, having ready access to statistics will help us easily to monitor changes as they happen or, even more importantly, where they are not happening quickly enough. This will help us to make better investment decisions and to marshal our resources to safeguard the future of the Bar.”

Bar Barometer can be found online at http://bit.ly/yHm31o.