Costs incurred in defending judicial review proceedings: FOI release

Information requested

The total legal costs incurred by the Scottish Government in defending judicial review proceedings, broken down annually for the past five years. If held, please provide figures for both:

• External legal counsel/solicitor fees; and
• Internal legal costs (e.g., staff costs where recorded)

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. As the scope of 5 years for this request would breach the upper cost limit, to be helpful and assist you, I have used the case management system to provide you with the financial information from the 1st April 2024 to 31st August 2025.

External legal counsel/solicitor fees

Below is the listed amounts broken down by financial year. These amounts include external legal counsel, court fees and other payments.

	2024/25	2025/26 (to August 2025)
Judicial Reviews	£348,721.35	£116,497.50

Internal legal costs

It may help if I explain that legal advice may be sought in both internal and external capacities and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to provide a total cost and/or expenditure figure accrued by the Scottish Government with regards to legal advice in relation to Judicial reviews.

About FOI

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.