The criminal barrister pupillages scheme has arrived with £1.5 million a year, up to 100 extra training places and the sort of language usually reserved for national rescue missions. The Ministry of Justice says it will widen access to the profession and strengthen the Criminal Bar. A plain empty wig stand wants to know whether this means faster justice, or simply more people waiting elegantly for it.
Criminal barrister pupillages scheme meets the pipeline
The scheme launched on 1 September and is designed to fund additional pupillages for aspiring criminal barristers. These placements provide the practical training required to qualify. This is useful because legal careers are apparently easier to enter when someone has already decided that you look promising beside a coat rack.
The government presents the investment as part of a plan for a faster and fairer justice system. That is an impressive destination for a programme whose first task is helping people obtain the job that helps courts function. The plain empty wig stand has classified this as infrastructure with a wig on it. It has no mouth, but it has found a way to look disappointed.
A modest scheme with grand paperwork
The criminal barrister pupillages scheme builds on a match funding programme run through the Council of the Inns of Court. Chambers receiving support will also be expected to include equal opportunity measures in recruitment. The ladder is therefore being extended while officials check that it is available to more than the people already standing on it.
The Ministry says the funding will support places that would not otherwise exist. That is a useful promise. It does not make the wider criminal justice backlog vanish by administrative magic. The wig stand has inspected the small print and found no clause requiring every delayed hearing to leave the building immediately.
Justice, but with a recruitment problem
The announcement says the legal sector contributes more than £42 billion to the UK economy and that extra junior barristers will strengthen the talent pipeline. Pipeline is a confident metaphor for a profession whose human beings still need training, supervision and time. Even pipes are normally installed before somebody announces that the water system is now inspirational.
That is the useful contradiction. The government can announce more routes into a vital profession while revealing that the route needs help. The criminal barrister pupillages scheme may put more people on the path to the Bar. The wig stand has already reached the end of its own path and is now demanding a reference from the furniture. The chair has declined, citing a lack of practical experience.
Source: GOV.UK.
