Barristers vote again

The confidential ballot ends on 26 June. Criminal Bar Association (CBA) chair Chris Henley QC said previous offers had not been good enough to put to the membership. Under the terms of the latest offer, which is being funded by the Treasury, the Crown Prosecution Service has agreed that, for all hearings/trials underway as at 1 September 2019, all fixed fees will be increased to the level of the Advocates’ Graduated Fees Scheme (AGFS), which sets payment levels for defence advocates. Refreshers will be paid from the second, rather than the third, day of trial. Continuation fees in long running trials will not be reduced from day 41.

On the AGFS, the Ministry of Justice has agreed to consider by the end of November the issues of unused material, fees for cracked trials and uplifts in paper-heavy cases.

Meanwhile, a wider review of fees will take place until summer 2020.

In his Monday Message on the CBA website, Henley said: ‘It has been presented as a global offer to the profession, which will not proceed if we reject it in favour of the proposed action.

‘Whether it will come back anytime soon is impossible to know…Action might achieve more at some future moment, but equally it might not, for all the obvious reasons.

‘If we don’t nail this down, before a general election, or a change of Attorney General and Lord Chancellor, who knows where we might end up, and how much longer a resolution will take.’