Legal cases brought against the Scottish Government exceeding £50,000: FOI release

Information requested

In the last five years, including to June 19, 2026, where a legal case brought against the Scottish Government exceeded £50,000, please provide a breakdown per case including:

• The case name or a description where the name cannot be disclosed
• The category/subject matter of the case (e.g. employment tribunal, judicial review, human rights, etc).
• The total external legal costs incurred
• Breakdown the cost per financial year

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) applies. Section 12 provides that a public authority is not required to comply with a request for information where the authority estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed the upper cost limit of £600 prescribed by the Freedom of Information (Fees for Required Disclosure) (Scotland) Regulations 2004. To identify every legal case involving the Scottish Government during the period covered by your request, and to establish the legal costs associated with each case, officials would be required to locate, retrieve, review and analyse a substantial volume of case and financial records held across a number of systems and sources. We estimate that the cost of undertaking this exercise would exceed the statutory limit of £600 and, therefore, we are unable to comply with your request in full.

However, in order to provide assistance, we have extracted information from the Scottish Government Legal Directorate's (SGLD) Case Management System (CMS) and have provided details of cases recorded on that system where external legal costs exceeded £50,000. It is important to note that the CMS has been used by SGLD only since 2024 and contains information relating to cases managed by SGLD lawyers. Accordingly, the information provided is limited to cases recorded on that system from 2024 onwards and should not be regarded as a complete record of all legal proceedings falling within the scope of your request for the period 2019–20 to 2026–27. The costs shown include counsel fees, court fees and fees payable to law accountants.

The information provided relates solely to cases on the CMS which Scottish Government Legal Directorate (SGLD) lawyers manage. Cases can be brought in the name of Scottish Ministers against agencies, non-ministerial offices, public bodies and other organisations. External legal advice may be taken by those bodies and they would hold information which the SGLD does not.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. I suggest you narrow the scope of your request by narrowing the time frame or requesting a specific financial year or legal case you wish to look at. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

Under section 15 of FOISA, public authorities have a duty to provide advice and assistance to applicants where reasonable to do so. You may wish to consider refining your request to reduce the cost of compliance. For example, you could narrow the timeframe covered by your request, request information for a specific financial year, or focus on a particular legal case or category of proceedings. This may enable us to provide a more comprehensive response within the statutory cost limit.

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.

FOI 202600522959 - Information released - Annex

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