Costs associated with Scottish Government Legal Directorate (SGLD) cases: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for 'Good evening could you please provide me with the cost of legal cases per annum from 2007 to present day that the Scottish Government has incurred. I would be grateful if the costs could be for the Scottish Governments costs and also a separate cost for having to pick up the 3rd parties costs in total per annum. If costs can’t be divulged individually, can you please provide the total sum of each case per case per annum.'

Response

We have interpreted your request as the following, the total cost of legal cases held by SGLD per annum from 2007 to the present day, the total cost of each case per annum, and what we have paid to 3rd parties where we have lost cases.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we do not hold accessible information going back to 2007. In addition, corporately, we only required to keep the last seven years worth of financial information.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

To assist and help with your request, I have attached the cost of legal cases per annum SGLD hold from 2019/20 to present day (2025/26).

Year	Total
2019-2020	£1,394,758.13
2020-2021	£1,851,991.49
2021-2022	£1,643,137.13
2022-2023	£3,248,071.30
2023-2024	£3,302,589.27
2024-2025	£2,082,456.09
2025-2026	£484,975.38

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.