At least one (usually the longest-serving) record-assessing member retires every year, to balance experience with "new blood". The committee usually nominates its own replacement candidate, but also invites nominations from others, and if any are received, holds an election among county bird recorders and the bird observatory network. A set of criteria for membership has been developed—currently, these are "a widely acknowledged expertise in identification, proven reliability in the field, a track record of high quality submissions of descriptions of scarce and rare birds to county records committees and BBRC, considerable experience of record assessment, the capacity to handle the considerable volume of work involved in assessing upwards of 1,000 records per year and the capacity to work quickly and efficiently". The following 69 individuals have served on BBRC in a records assessment capacity: