Politicians slam the cost of legal advice to the Welsh Assembly

Opposition politicians have sharply criticised the cost of external legal advice to the Welsh Assembly after an answer to a written question revealed the assembly's external legal bill to have been more than £3.8m in 2008-09 despite employing a 100-strong in-house legal team.

The total cost of external legal services to the Welsh Assembly was £3,881,206 of which health and social services legal spending was responsible for £1,812,366, economy and transport for £1,132,049 and environment, sustainability and housing £138,950.

Conservative Assembly leader Nick Bourne, who tabled the question to the Assembly Minister for Budget and Business Jane Hutt, said that he was “staggered” by the size of the Assembly's legal bill.  He said: “It is particularly concerning that the Assembly Government incurred a total of £3,881,206 on external legal advice when they already have a sizeable team of legal advisers on the books.”

Meanwhile, Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, told the Western Mail: “It is absolutely astounding that the Labour-Plaid government spent nearly £4m on external legal advice last year. At the time, the Government’s chief legal adviser was Carwyn Jones, a fully-qualified barrister who is now the First Minister of Wales.”

However, a spokesperson for the Assembly said that the majority of these were focused on governance issues and drafting legislation and that it was necessary to go outside for specialist legal advice. Moreover, the Assembly does not have an in-house litigation team. Despite the criticisms, the Assembly said that it had no plans to change the structure of the in-house legal department.

A Welsh Assembly spokesperson said: “Our internal legal service is primarily focused on advising ministers on the discharge of their statutory functions and on the delivery – including drafting – of the legislative programme.

“External legal advice is used to support the Assembly Government in non-core legal areas, including commercial, property, corporate finance and employment law. Clearly, as a sizeable landowner, or when engaged in commercial negotiations, it is essential that we receive suitable legal support to ensure the best outcome for the Welsh taxpayer.

“In addition, we do not employ an in-house litigation team, and therefore need to ensure effective legal representation on issues arising from our responsibilities as a highways authority, or to assist in the legal affairs of the NHS – for example, when dealing with clinical negligence cases. We have very strict rules in place to ensure such expenditure is kept to a minimum and only incurred where absolutely necessary and with proper authorisation.”

Welsh Conservative spokesman Richard Hazlewood said that the party did not have a view on whether the council should retain more legal work in-house or whether external legal advisers were charging too much. However, he said that the high volume of legislation being proposed by the Assembly had left the legal team struggling to keep up.

The Welsh Assembly said that it was unable to provide comparable figures for earlier years, due to the disproportionate costs of obtaining.

The Welsh Assembly is currently controlled by a coalition of the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru.