All criminal solicitor-advocates and barristers including Queen’s Counsel would face compulsory reaccreditation every five years under proposals put forward by the Joint Advocacy Group (JAG) last week.

The JAG was established by the Bar Standards Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ILEX Professional Standards to develop a scheme to quality assure criminal advocacy across the three professions.

It proposes that the new accreditation scheme should include four levels of criminal advocacy, ranging from work in the magistrates' court at level 1, to complex Crown court work at level 4, similar to the levels used by the Crown Prosecution Service. Advocates would be assessed against a common minimum standard of advocacy at each level.

All advocates would be subject to reaccreditation by various methods, including judicial evaluation and performance portfolio, with a ‘traffic light’ system used to weed out underperformance.

Under the plans an independent body, the Performance of Advocacy Council, would become the central assessor body, chaired initially by a senior criminal judge.

The JAG said the scheme proposed was cost effective, proportionate and straightforward, but accepted there was ‘considerable’ work still to do to bring it into operation.

The new scheme is scheduled for introduction by July 2011. The consultation will end on 12 November.