BPP Law School has been granted degree-awarding status in a move that makes the group the UK's first private-sector company able to award the qualification.

The school, together with BPP Business School, was awarded the powers by the Privy Council after an 18-month review by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

The decision means the school will offer both the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Bar Vocational Course (BVC) as optional masters degrees, with students able to take additional modules to win the degree. The Graduate Diploma in Law will be offered as an honours degree in law (LLB).

Rival provider the College of Law awarded its first batch of degrees earlier this month after winning degree awarding status in May last year.

Peter Crisp, chief executive of BPP College and Dean of BPP Law School, told Legal Week: "This is the culmination of many years [of] hard work and means we can now stand on our own feet with the power to award our own degrees.

"They will be optional but I would expect most students would want to do this."

BPP has around 5,000 full and part-time students and outperformed the rest of the BPP training group for the first half of 2007, with profits up nearly 50% against a 17% hike in turnover.

It also retained its status as exclusive provider to the City LPC consortium comprising Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May.