The Bar Council has admitted the revamped QC appointment process is unlikely to create any new silks until at least the autumn, in the latest delay to hit the controversial Kite-Mark scheme.

Bar chairman Guy Mansfield QC, together with Law Society president Edward Nally, has said that the new process would only be completed “as soon as practicable”, conceding no new silks would be made up until the closing quarter of 2005 at the earliest.