The legal services
commission released figures under the freedom of information act (FOIA) showing
that the barrister, who is based at Matrix chambers in London, has received
cash payments from legal aid totalling just over £432,000 in the past
eight years.
However, it said that this figure included a pay-ment of £210,000
– ultimately not paid from public funds – for her work helping
to represent former staff, and spouses of staff, of the collapsed BCCI bank.
They were in dispute with the bank’s creditors over unpaid salaries
and loan repayment, with the case being settled in 2002.
The commission said: “In the end, there was no cost to public
funds for this case as the opposing party paid the legal-aid costs as part
of the settlement.”
As part of unusual terms of settlement, because of the complexity of
the case and number of parties involved, the commission received a lump sum
for the costs and determined what payments to make to each lawyer working
under legal aid.
The commission said that Booth carried out no work under criminal legal
aid – only civil.
It added that barristers, who are self-employed, “typically pay
25%-30% of their fees in professional expenses.”
Booth specialises in public, human rights, and employment law. Tony
Blair’s wife was called to the bar in 1976, took silk in 1995 and became
a recorder, or part-time judge, in 1999.
In the last financial year, 2004-05, the comm-ission authorised payments
to Booth totalling just over £117,000.
It authorised payments of another £750,000 to other barristers
in her chambers, which has grown from 23 members, when it started in 2000,
to 50.
FOIA Centre commentary
The way in which this information was released under FOIA serves as an
illustration of the primary problem we are finding with the way the freedom
of information act is working in the UK.
The legal services commission took far longer than the statutory limit
of 20 working days to release this data, taking some nine months to provide
the information requested.
The public body says that several similar requests for the information
came from various journalists, but it was still painfully slow.
It said that collating the information was “complex” and
“time consuming”.
This raises questions about how it stores inform-ation and keeps track
of its expenditure – of taxpayers’ money.
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