The completion of the training of barristers is a genuine regulatory concern of the Bar Standards Board (BSB). According to recent statistics, the number of students who want to become barristers shows little sign of diminishing with 3,100 applicants to the Bar Professional Training Course (BTPC) in 2010/2011 and 3,016 in 2011/2012. There is a growing level of concern at the Bar and amongst law students that the rising demand for the BPTC is not reflected by rising availability of pupillages, coupled with increasing fees for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC). BPP Law School, one of the main providers of the BPTC, recently announced an increase in fees by five per cent for September 2012 to £16,540. It is hoped that introduction of the Bar Course Aptitude Test (BCAT) will introduce fairness, by decreasing the number of law students who fail the BPTC, and the public consultation until 29 February 2012 is encouraged to see if this will be the case.

The BSB proposes that, in addition to existing entry requirements as specified in the Bar Training Regulations, all BPTC students should attain a minimum pass threshold on the BCAT, which has been carefully developed and piloted specifically for this purpose. It is proposed that this implementation of the BCAT by Pearson Vue should commence with the cohort of candidates applying from November 2012 to start the course in September 2013. Whatever is proposed by the Bar Standards Board, it will be for the Legal Services Board to determine whether the proposal may be implemented.

The BCAT is based on the established and recognised Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Test which is used by some law firms in recruitment assessment days and by the Graduate Management Admissions Council. The Wood Review of the BPTC’s predecessor, the BVC, had been commissioned by the BSB with a Working Group chaired by Derek Wood QC, and published in July 2008. Learners will now be able to take the BCAT at any stage of their education or career, including after applying for the BPTC. The requirement will be that applicants must have scored the threshold pass before enrolling on the course, similar to the current English language rule and other entry requirements. It is staggering that, despite the fact that no socioeconomic data in the pilot were collected,  the Bar Standards Board find that the test will not any effect, adverse or otherwise, on socioeconomic factors of enrolment on the BPTC.

Students in the UK are already prone to be most over-assessed in Europe, and it is an embarrassment to our educational system that academic competences will not have been identified by other means by the time a learner sits the test. The cost of taking the test will be a consideration for some learners at a time when some may in future be coping with university course fees.  Unfortunately there is a slightly higher cost of taking the test for international students due to higher cost to Pearson Vue of testing and processing results overseas. The BSB has apparently explored the chance of a reduction with Pearson Vue but it has been confirmed that this cost is non-movable.

Certainly the equality and diversity impact assessment will have to be evaluated critically. For example,  while no significant differences were found for age, or disability, statistically significant but small differences were found for gender and primary language. Indeed, Pearson Vue intend to mitigate against the effects of disability, indeed as they are obliged to under current equality legislation, through “reasonable adjustments” at test centres. The BSB will need to ensure that these are enforced rigorously, as anecdotal reports on the success of implementation by legal recruiters have been unimpressive for training contract applications.

A legal secretary commented on Twitter today that diversity would be ensured according to ‘how easy is it to pay for coaching to pass’. Formal education is currently expensive, and it is unlikely that educational providers might draw attention to the finding in the report that ‘coaching can have a small effect’, and indeed  It is the view of the Bar Standards Board that it is more important to ensure fairness by allowing an unlimited number of re-sits, as the risk of applicants being coached sufficiently to achieve a pass is limited.

Views of current BPTC towards the proposed BCAT are mixed, but few current students are enthusiastic about what it will achieve. One current BPTC student ‘tweeted’, ‘I did LNAT and failed. According to that I shouldn’t have done law at uni, or anything further. So sceptical at aptitude tests.’

It is hugely impressive that the BSB have put produced such an excellent report into the development of the BCAT which is now open to consultation until 29 February 2012. It will be very interesting  to see how the profession responds. The Law Society has already commenced investigations into a similar LPC aptitude test, and will undoubtedly follow the progress of the BSB BCAT with enormous interest.