Self-employed barristers prosecuting cases deserve parity with lawyers employed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Bar Council has said.
Earlier this month, the civil service trade union, the FDA, negotiated a 10% pay rise for CPS Crown Prosecutors; increases of up to 8% for prosecutors, professionals and senior managers; and a 13.5% increase in overtime rates. The rises will be paid over the course of two years.
FDA national officer Steven Littlewood said the pay rise was a ‘well overdue reward for long-serving staff, who have been trapped in the lower ends of pay ranges for years’.
Richard Atkins QC, chair of the Bar Council, said he was pleased for CPS lawyers.
‘This, however, is in stark contrast to the failure to increase the levels of pay for the self-employed members of the Bar who provide an essential public service prosecuting the vast majority of the serious cases tried in the Crown Court,’ he said.
‘The pay scheme under which self-employed barristers are remunerated has had no increases since its inception in 2001 (and has therefore been eroded by inflation) and actually suffered a 5% cut in 2012. There can be no justification for one part of the system to receive a pay increase whilst another part is ignored.
‘The Bar Council looks to the Director of Public Prosecutions to address this iniquity as a matter of urgency.’
Meanwhile, Criminal Bar chair Chris Henley QC, in his Monday Message, described fees for prosecuting as ‘appalling, bordering on the financially immoral, and in many instances pound for pound lower than they were 20 years ago’.
Henley said he received a message from a head of chambers last week that two barristers had just resigned—a senior and a middle ranking junior. Both had left the Bar ‘because the cuts have made the future entirely unsustainable’.
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