Pupils and Pensions Auto-Enrolment
Purpose: To draw chambers and barristers' attention to their obligations
under the Pensions Act 2008
Scope of application: All practising barristers
Issued by: The Bar Council
Originally issued: August 2015
Status and effect: Please see the notice at end of this document. This is not
“guidance” for the purposes of the BSB Handbook I6.4.
Summary
1. The decision in Edmonds v Lawson provides Court of Appeal authority for the
assumption that pupil barristers do not work under a contract by which they undertake to
do work or perform services personally for their pupil supervisor or for chambers as a
whole. As a result, the Bar Council considers that they pupils will not ordinarily be workers
for the purposes of Part 1 of the Pensions Act 2008 and do not need to be auto-enrolled.
2. The judgment is however fifteen years old and the legal analysis of what constitutes
worker/employee status may have developed over time. A court may take a different view,
depending on the facts of a particular case.
3. Given the risk, individual chambers should ensure that both contractual
arrangements with pupils and policies and procedures reflect arrangements which do not
suggest a pupil has worker status. Chambers may consider obtaining independent legal
advice as to its specific status.
4. Chambers should also keep in mind that ‘pupils’ and ‘pupillage’ are regulatory
terms defined by the BSB Handbook. They do not include ‘third six pupils’, which is a form
of practice that does not have a specific regulatory status as ‘third six pupils’ are for
regulatory purposes barristers with full practising certificates. Chambers with ‘third six’
pupils should also ensure that any contractual arrangements or policies and procedures
reflect arrangements which do not suggest a ‘third six’ pupil has worker status.
