Information relating to the organisation's total spend on external legal advice since 1 April 2020: FOI release

Information requested

1. The total spend, broken down by financial or calendar year, on external legal advice since April 1, 2020. (I.e. 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23 to date)
2. Please break this down by the list of associated cases or disputes, and their individual cost.
3. If possible, please provide the final settlement or damages or other court mandated payment cost for any cases during which external legal advice was sought. If it is not possible to link each case to a settlement agreement, please provide the total cost of the settlements or payments.

Response

Please find below some of the information you have requested.

	FY2020/21	FY2021/22	FY2022/23	Total
Glow – Data Protection Advice	£10,264	£11,709	£6,459	£28,432
Glow – Trademark Application			£2,321	£2,321
Total	£10,264	£11,709	£8,780	£30,753
Other	[REDACTED]	[REDACTED]	[REDACTED]	[REDACTED]

The information provided under the “other” heading relates to a small number of individuals. We believe that to disclose figures of any type would cause a significant risk, that the individuals would be easily identifiable both within and outwith the organisation. Under section 38(1)(b) as detailed below, as the information relates to less than five individuals we are classing this data, including figures, as personal information.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information because an exemption under section 38(1)(b), personal information of FOISA applies because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

About FOI

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