Money spent on external law firms and barristers for the year ending 31 March 2020

You asked

​Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know:

• The amount of money your department spent on the services of external law firms and barristers for the year ending March 31st 2020

Please exclude legal services provided by the Government Legal Department. However, please include legal services that the Government Legal Department has outsourced to a third party.

You can approximate spending levels, i.e. if you are not able to provide the exact figures, please give us your best estimate.

Please note that the figure we have requested should exclude spending by your department on the GLD (Government Legal Department) and its predecessor the TSoL (Treasury Solicitor's Department).

We said

​Thank you for your request.

Expenditure on legal services (excluding transactions with the Government Legal Department) amounted to £95,188.98 in the year ending 31st March 2020. Further information is provided in the spreadsheet accompanying our response, named 'Legal services expenditure - Non-GLD'.

Unfortunately, we are not able to determine if any of the services provided by the Government Legal Department were outsourced to a third party.