Baroness Blackstone to be the new Chair of the Bar Standards Board
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has today announced that The Rt Hon the Baroness Blackstone will succeed Sir Andrew Burns KCMG as its new Chair on 1 January 2018.
Welcoming her appointment, Dr Vanessa Davies, the Director General of the BSB said “I am delighted that our independent Appointments Panel has found such an excellent successor to our
current Chair, Sir Andrew Burns, who has served the Board with great distinction over the past three years. Baroness Blackstone has had a remarkable career in British public life and brings with her a great deal of relevant experience of education and of leading important institutions. I very much look forward to working with her.”
Commenting on her new role, Baroness Blackstone said “I am very pleased to have been appointed as the new Chair of the Bar Standards Board. The BSB’s role is to regulate barristers in the public interest. Ensuring that the Bar is a strong and diverse profession offering high quality services and access to justice for the public is vital for our society.”
About the Bar Standards Board
Our mission is to regulate barristers and specialised legal services businesses in England and Wales in the public interest. For more information about what we do visit: http://bit.ly/1gwui8t
Our Constitution requires that all appointments to the Board, including to the posts of Chair and Vice Chair of the Board, are made by an Independent Appointments Panel. The Appointments
Panel is made up of a number of ex official appointments, plus lay people who contribute independence and knowledge of good recruitment practices.
About The Rt Hon the Baroness Blackstone
Baroness Blackstone has enjoyed a distinguished career in education, politics and public life having been a lecturer at the London School of Economics, a member of the Central Policy Review Staff at the Cabinet Office, a Professor at the Institute of Education, Deputy Education Officer of the Inner London Education Authority, Master of Birkbeck College, University of London and Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich. She was Minister of State for Education and Employment from 1997 until 2001 and Minister for the Arts from 2001 until 2003. She has been the Chair of the General Advisory Council of the BBC, the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust, and of the Board of Great Ormond Street Hospital and is currently Chair of the British Library Board, the Franco-British Council, the Orbit Group of housing associations and the Trustees of the British Lung Foundation.