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Association for barristers in local government attacks "excessive" PC fee hike

The chairman of the association representing barristers in local government and the public sector has attacked Bar Council proposals to increase PC fees significantly for employed barristers as “quite disproportionate and excessive”.

The reforms were unveiled by Bar Council treasurer Andrew Mitchell QC at the end of August.

In a letter to Mitchell, Mirza Ahmad, chairman of the Bar Association for Local Government and Public Service, said key principles of fairness should be borne in mind when the proposals are finalised.

Ahmad, Corporate Director of Governance at Birmingham City Council and current president of the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors (BALGPS), said these principles were:

  • The total cost of regulation: “This should fall on those who are the subject of the regulation,” Ahmad argued. “Accordingly, as I understand it, those in self-employed practice should pay most of the cost of regulation as they are the ones most likely to be before the regulation system and very few, if any, employed barristers appear before the regulation system.” The BALGPS chairman called on Mitchell to obtain the appropriate figures of each category from the Bar Standards Board and a percentage calculated from the profession, as a whole. “Each sector should then be asked to pay their proportionate cost of regulation,” he said.
  • The total cost of Bar services provision to sectors: Ahmad argued that if it is correct that the self-employed sector consumes most of the services from the Bar Council, “they should pay their due share for the same”.  He argued that, as for the total cost of regulation, an “appropriate percentage of each sector should be calculated from the profession, as a whole, and each sector asked to pay the proportionate cost of Bar services provision”.

The BALGPS chairman also called for a strategy to be adopted to lessen the impact of any changes, adding that this should be for a two-year period, not 12 months as the Bar Council’s proposals suggest.