A trio of legal regulators have approved a new scheme for criminal barristers that will see them placed in one of four quality brackets in a bid to improve advocacy standards at the Bar.

The Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) was approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the Bar Standards Board (BSB) and the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) on Friday (23 March).

It will see all criminal advocates being placed into one of the four levels through a process of judicial evaluation phased in from late 2012.

The new scheme has already sparked controversy after the Legal Services Commission (LSC) said that it was considering whether the QASA scheme could also be used to measure pay for criminal barristers, in a move that could see QCs paid the same as leading juniors.

If the LSC were to adopt the scheme for measuring pay this could mean that the top grade – four – would be used to cover both silks and leading juniors, effectively ending any difference in pay between the two ranks.

Criminal advocates are currently paid for legal aid work by the LSC under the Advocate Graduated Fee Scheme that provides a distinction in pay grade for QCs.

25 Bedford Row's John Cooper QC (pictured) said: "The scheme could be disastrous at both ends of the Bar. Obviously it will undermine the potential quality and experience provided by QCs.

"It is not just at that end of the scale where this foolhardy initiative will hit, potentially there will be an increase in the competition pool between QCs and senior juniors, for instance with QCs pitching for senior junior work and senior juniors pitching for other junior work, which in time will have a domino effect of hitting the very young, vulnerable new entrants to the profession.

"Initiatives over the past few years from Government have shown little regard for the development of an independent referral Bar and this is another step towards the disintegration of something many people hold very dear and others may not realise its value until it's too late and gone."

The regulatory bodies have said that there will be on-going monitoring, evaluation and data gathering for two years from implementation, after which it will be reviewed and amended if necessary, with a decision on pay set to be taken by the LSC during this period.

The regulatory bodies first outlined plans to introduce the QASA for the criminal Bar in September last year, shortly after which it was flagged that the LSC was considering using the scheme to set pay.

The news comes after just 26% of the 2012 QC appointments were awarded to criminal barristers last month, with many attributing the low number to a lack of criminal applications in light of moves to scale back the number of QCs appointed by judges to rape and other criminal cases in order to cut costs.