Revealed: Government fail to demand audit of Alex Salmond’s £500,000 legal costs as experts warn taxpayers’ bill is far higher

Taxpayers may have paid up to £100,000 over the odds to Alex Salmond’s lawyers after the Scottish Government failed to get the costs fully audited, experts claimed yesterday.

Costs lawyer Jim Diamond, an expert in legal fees, said the government missed a clear opportunity to reduce costs and warned the true cost to taxpayers after civil servants botched an investigation into harassment claims will be far higher than the £630,000 admitted so far.

It was revealed last week that the former First Minister and his lawyers Levy & McRae have been paid £512,250 to cover his expenses from a successful judicial review into how civil servants handled complaints.

The sum was paid on a basis called “agent/client, client paying” which includes all costs incurred between solicitor and client.

However, the Scottish Government did not get the costs “taxed”, an assessment carried out by the auditor of the Court of Session.

The Scottish Government says it spent £118,523 on external legal fees taking its legal bill to £630,773. That, however, does not include the time and resources devoted to the case by civil service legal teams.

Mr Diamond, Britain’s leading legal costs expert, said: “I would be extremely concerned that the Scottish Government have paid much more than they might have. They could have saved possibly £100,000 via a forensic examination of the account by the auditor.

“I have had on average from 20% to 50% taken off bills in cases I’ve worked on.

“I’d also estimate the taxpayer will pay far more than the sums confirmed so far because the Scottish Government will have extensive internal costs.”

A senior legal source added: “For expenses to be agreed on the basis of the losing party paying agent/client, client paying means the Scottish Government agreed to pay Alex Salmond’s legal expenses as charged to him by Levy & McRae.

“This means that if Mr Salmond had four meetings to discuss a point in his case then taxpayers have to pay for four meetings when one may have sufficed.

“The rule of thumb is that the winning party gets the losing party to pay their judicial expenses which are about 60% of agent/client, client paying expenses.

“In this case, where £512,250 was claimed and paid, the normal expenses of 60% would have been around £350,000.

“If the government had gone to taxation, where the court accountant, the auditor, looks at the case, then more might have been taken off the bill.”

A spokesman for Alex Salmond said: “Lord Pentland awarded Mr Salmond judicial expenses and granted expenses on the increased solicitor/client scale for part of the process.

“An account of expenses was prepared by a law accountant. Agreement was reached on the sum but, in any case, further debate on it could not change the solicitor/client basis determined by the court.

“The award of expenses does not cover all of the legal expenses involved in the judicial review incurred by Mr Salmond although, because of the solicitor/client basis, it is a higher percentage than would otherwise be the case.” It was revealed last year that two women had made complaints of sexual misconduct against Salmond dating to his time as First Minister.

The findings of the Scottish Government investigation into the allegations were struck down in court after they admitted their own guidelines had been breached by the appointment of an investigating officer with “prior involvement”.

In a separate criminal investigation, Salmond has been charged with 14 offences, including two of attempted rape. The former SNP First Minister denies all the charges.

A Holyrood committee is due to probe the botched Scottish Government investigation. One committee member, Scottish Conservative MSP Donald Cameron, said: “While the SNP has wholly failed the two women who had brought the original allegations of sexual misconduct, it has also wasted significant amounts of public money in the process.

“It is galling to learn there were potential opportunities to reduce this waste.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We have already made public the cost of our external legal advice. Settlement was reached in line with established procedures and following extensive negotiation which meant it was not necessary to have the account taxed by the Auditor of Court.”

Levy & McRae did not comment.