The architects of a scheme to assure the quality of criminal advocates say it is back on track to start in April 2012. The Joint Advocacy Group (JAG) said that the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates has been tweaked to ensure it ?protects the public interest across a wide variety of criminal advocacy practices and does not have any unintended consequences?. The scheme will be implemented in stages, circuit by circuit, from April with advocates able to apply for accreditation from that date. The JAG is still considering which circuit will be the first to adopt the scheme. read more