The Bar Council has agreed to give its regulator a separate constitution enshrining its independence.

Following approval by the Bar Council at the weekend, the Bar Standards Board will have its own constitution, giving it powers to choose the committees, standing orders and rules that govern its structure and operation.

It will also move to change the composition of its board, which currently has a barrister majority, so it will have a lay majority by 2012.

Next month all approved regulators have to certify to the Legal Services Board that they have put in place measures to ensure sufficient independence from the representative arms of their respective bodies, in compliance with the Legal Services Act 2007.

Bar Council chair Nick Green QC (pictured) said the change, which reflects the current ‘cooperative modus operandi’ between the two bodies, was passed with ‘unanimous approval and no opposition’.

‘Under the act the Bar Council is the regulator and we delegate that function to the BSB, which must be independent, but the Bar Council has to preserve and protect that,’ he said.

BSB chair Baroness Deech said: ‘It’s a great step forward. The new constitution recognises the independence of the BSB while allowing for reasonable input from the Bar Council.’

Russell Wallman, the Law Society’s director of government relations, said it was accepted that the composition of the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s board needed to change to give it a lay majority, and the two arms of the organisation were in talks over other changes that may be required.