Groups representing black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors have condemned a proposal to co-opt a BME member on to the Solicitors Regulation Authority board without giving them ­voting rights.

The proposal is a response to Lord Ouseley’s controversial report on the disproportionate number of BME solicitors facing disciplinary hearings. The board currently has 16 members, 15 of whom are white.

Lord Ouseley’s 22 recommendations included a call to look at ‘the future composition of the SRA Board to reflect ethnic diversity’. A meeting of the SRA’s external implementation group earlier this month heard that the board ‘supported the co-option of one individual with non-voting rights on to the board as an interim appointment until the end of December 2009’. A spokesperson said the co-optee would be ‘ideally a BME person’. The SRA is also considering the appointment of BME stakeholders on its 11 committees and working groups. However Cordella Bart-Stewart (pictured), chair of the Black Solicitors Network (BSN), described co-option without voting rights as ‘meaningless and unacceptable’. She said: ‘All members of the board should have equal weight. It sends a signal that the issue is not being taken seriously and they are only paying lip service.’ Ifath Nawaz, chair of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, said the board must ‘avoid both any acts of appointment for the sake of appointing and anything that could be regarded as empty gestures’. The proposal goes before the Law Society Council next month.