Tuesday 30 June 2009

The Lawyers Get Rich...

More from the Freedom of Information goldmine.

Nottingham City Council has been spending nearly £100,000 per year on private sector lawyers, purely in disputes with its own former employees.

A Freedom of Information request via the 'What Do They Know' website revealed that during the financial years 2007/8 and 2008/9 NCC spent £195,064* on external lawyers for help preparing for and being represented at Employment Tribunals.

The bulk of this, £131,536* was spent on external representation at Tribunal hearings, despite only 5 cases going as far as a full hearing during this period, averaging around £26,000 per hearing.

All this despite the council having its own legal department, although they couldn't tell us how much was spent on internal lawyers working on employment cases because they apparently do other things as well.

Update 1 July - The 'Post' is reporting that NCC overspent by £3.4m last year. Clearly their lawyers' benevolence fund won't have helped.

*including VAT natch

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