Criminal Legal Aid expenditure

Summary

The Treasury responded to a request for a detailed breakdown of criminal legal aid expenditure from 2007/08 to 2016/17, providing data on costs and disbursements but refusing to supply exact VAT figures due to the substantial compilation required.

Key Facts

• The request covered criminal legal aid expenditure for ten financial years from 2007/08 to 2016/17.
• Information created before 11 October 2011 was provided voluntarily as it falls outside the mandatory scope of the Freedom of Information Act 2015.
• Exact irrecoverable VAT figures were withheld because extracting them would require reviewing individual invoices, constituting substantial compilation under section 8(3)(c).
• An estimate of irrecoverable VAT was provided by apportioning total VAT based on costs, excluding Court Duty Advocate schemes where VAT is recoverable.
• The data represents invoices paid within each year rather than expenditure incurred in that specific year.

Data Disclosed

• 2007/08
• 2016/17
• 11 October 2011
• 7 December 2017
• 8 January 2018
• £10,396.37
• £43,261.91
• section 11(3)(b)
• section 8(3)(c)

Exemptions Cited

• Section 11(3)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (practical refusal reason)
• Section 8(3)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (substantial compilation or collation)

Original Request

Criminal legal aid expenditure

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

The Treasury

Yn Tashtey

REFERENCE NUMBER: IM113030I REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2015 (“the Act”)

Thank you for your request dated 7 December 2017.

Your request

You asked: -

Please provide a breakdown of criminal legal aid expenditure for the years 07/08, 08/09, 09/10, 10/11, 11/12, 12/13, 13/14, 14/15, 15/16, 16/17. Such expenditure to be broken down between Green Form, Police Station Duty Advocate Scheme, Court Duty Advocate Scheme and Full Criminal Legal Aid, with each such section broken down to show Costs, VAT disbursements, Non VAT disbursements, VAT and Total.

Response to your request
A Freedom of Information request can only be made in respect of information created on or after 11 October 2011.
In respect of that portion of the information requested that was created before 11 October 2011, although we are not obliged to provide this to you as part of this request, we have included the relevant information within the table found in Annex A.
The table also includes the information requested in relation to criminal legal aid expenditure since 11 October 2011. In relation to the subsection of information you have requested that relates to VAT (referred to in the table as ‘irrecoverable VAT’), section 11(3)(b) of the Act provides a practical refusal reason where complying with the request for information would require the public authority to do one or more of the matters mentioned in section 8(3) (things a public authority is not required to do by the Act).

Freedom of Information Seyrsnys Fysseree

The Treasury Government Office,
Douglas Isle of Man,
British Isles IM1 3PU

Telephone (01624) 685605 Email: FOI.Treasury@gov.im

Government Website: www.gov.im Date: 8 January 2018

In this instance, providing this subsection of information would require Treasury to undertake substantial compilation or collation of information that it holds, which we are not required to do under section 8(3)(c) of the Act. Specifically, in order to identify irrecoverable VAT against the sections you have listed, Treasury would be required to review each relevant invoice it holds to extract the required information and compile it into a single source. Whilst we have been able to extract information from Government’s Financial Accounting System to respond to the other parts of your request, as only one ledger code is used for irrecoverable VAT, irrespective of green form, police station, court or full, it is not possible to use this as a source of the information you require. However, in order to assist you with your request we have provided an estimate of this information in the table provided in Annex A. In order to provide this estimate, we have taken the total irrecoverable VAT paid in each of the relevant years, and have apportioned this according to costs by each heading (excluding court duty advocate where all VAT can be reclaimed as the Advocate is supplying a service to Government rather than an individual and hence the VAT is recoverable).
Please note that the expenditure information presented in the table in Annex A represents the invoices paid within each year: the information is not necessarily representative of the year in which the expenditure was incurred. Your right to request a review
If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post to me at the above address.
An electronic version of our complaint form can be found at www.gov.im/foireview. If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.
If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on;
1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision.
More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im/. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.
Yours sincerely,

FOI Coordinator, the Treasury

ANNEX A

Criminal Legal Aid Expenditure

2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 Green form - criminal Costs £10,396.37 £21,545.85 £40,906.64 £45,205.53 £51,516.55 £48,287.04 £45,343.22 £32,179.82 £34,913.23 £43,261.91 VAT Disbursements £128.42 £43.50 £55.81 £32.78 £976.71 £793.36 £24.44 £6.44 £25.84 £808.00 Non VAT Disbursements £6.00 £126.50 £127.30 £409.54 £257.25 £500.00 £52.14 £180.00 £120.00 £335.50 Apportioned Irrecoverable VAT - see note * £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £8,878.56 £12,046.89 £9,505.23 £9,080.91 £6,712.93 £6,382.01 £9,848.73 Total £10,530.79 £21,715.85 £41,089.75 £54,526.41 £64,797.40 £59,085.63 £54,500.71 £39,079.19 £41,441.08 £54,254.14 Police Duty Advocate Costs £254,973.35 £378,485.02 £406,411.08 £390,722.32 £426,808.13 £390,906.02 £415,378.86 £411,232.99 £365,138.34 £345,196.81 VAT Disbursements £4,914.91 £7,614.53 £6,118.27 £9,786.39 £6,040.68 £4,349.21 £4,083.72 £3,233.66 £2,329.23 -£213.47 Apportioned Irrecoverable VAT - see note * £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £76,739.55 £99,806.96 £76,949.25 £83,188.09 £85,785.99 £66,745.93 £78,585.28 Total £259,888.26 £386,099.55 £412,529.35 £477,248.26 £532,655.77 £472,204.48 £502,650.67 £500,252.64 £434,213.50 £423,568.62 Court Duty Advocate Costs £136,244.13 £165,567.39 £188,312.08 £249,448.37 £272,495.58 £228,232.00 £118,849.50 £103,852.91 £95,065.49 £110,100.27 VAT Disbursements £75.93 £201.22 £103.17 £113.38 £34.84 £61.62 £69.24 £124.74 £143.00 £130.50 Non-VAT Disbursements £1.20 £60.00 £17.68 £38.74 £7.80 £255.00 Total £136,320.06 £165,769.81 £188,475.25 £249,579.43 £272,569.16 £228,293.62 £118,926.54 £104,232.65 £95,208.49 £110,230.77 Full Criminal Legal Aid Costs £1,624,383.86 £1,768,003.88 £1,318,475.00 £1,694,761.53 £1,918,729.53 £1,430,176.84 £1,199,107.74 £1,144,455.06 £1,238,030.02 £794,569.77 VAT Disbursements £41,984.73 £69,683.07 £111,554.56 £124,221.22 £110,295.56 £106,759.36 £67,153.67 £191,418.81 £103,815.88 £82,531.01 Non-VAT Disbursements £14.30 £71,461.50 £22,951.20 £73,443.20 £42,599.71 £57,523.91 £32,882.08 £31,405.22 £78,483.79 £26,933.54 Apportioned Irrecoverable VAT - see note * £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £332,858.46 £448,685.35 £281,528.12 £240,145.80 £238,741.09 £226,307.28 £180,886.64 Total £1,666,382.89 £1,909,148.45 £1,452,980.76 £2,225,284.41 £2,520,310.15 £1,875,988.23 £1,539,289.29 £1,606,020.18 £1,646,636.97 £1,084,920.96 * One ledger code is used for irrecoverable VAT, irrespective of green form, police station, court or full so without examining each invoice (a time consuming exercise which will probably result is a very similar answer) this has been apportioned according to costs by each heading, excluding court duty advocate where all VAT can be reclaimed as the Advocate is supplying a service to Government rather than an individual and hence the VAT is recoverable.

The expenditure information presented in the table above represents the invoices paid within each year: the information is not necessarily representative of the year in which the expenditure was incurred.

Following discussions with Customs and Excise, the VAT treatment of input tax paid to advocates etc. was changed in 2010/11.