Skip to content
© Copyright, Judicial Appointments Commission 2026.

Judicial Diversity Forum – update on judicial diversity priorities and actions for 2025

Published:
Image of a person using a silver laptop

The Judicial Diversity Forum (JDF) has today published an update on the wide range of actions that its members are undertaking, both collectively and individually, to achieve a more diverse and inclusive judiciary.

This update includes the publication of: 

  • Priorities and actions for 2025, including an update on progress against the 2024 action plan and the further development of a Theory of Change methodology to evaluate the impact of JDF partners’ initiatives. 
  • A covering statement which details key highlights of the JDF’s joint initiatives delivered in 2024 and the Forum’s priority areas for 2025. 

In 2022, the JDF identified four outcomes around which to align its work to achieve a more diverse and inclusive judiciary, as part of its efforts to strengthen its strategic approach to monitoring and evaluation of its initiatives: 

  1. Ensure an inclusive and supportive culture in the judiciary and the wider legal professions. 
  2. Address barriers to successful applications and identify and eliminate any actual barriers in appointments processes as operated (including in relation to professional groupings). 
  3. Eliminate structural barriers in access by different professional groups to the judiciary. 
  4. Address barriers to senior legal and senior judicial positions for women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and people with disabilities (and other groups as agreed). 

These aims formed the basis of successive action plans, to provide clear direction for the Forum’s range of targeted and collaborative initiatives. During 2024, the Forum has worked collectively to further strengthen its strategic approach, including identifying gaps where further action may be required. The 2025 action plan provides an update to this approach and outlines the activities that JDF partners will undertake in the next year to deliver against these four outcomes and how the impact of each initiative will be measured and evaluated. 

The JDF will continue to report annually on progress against the priorities and actions set out in the action plan and will continue to publish annual combined statistics, which bring together in-depth data on the diversity of the judiciary, judicial appointments, and the legal professions, allowing for enhanced analysis and insight into how to improve judicial diversity.