Dear Sir/Madam

I acknowledge receipt of your email which is receiving attention.

I shall contact you again when I am in a position to respond more fully to your request.

Yours faithfully.

Jacqueline Keachie
For Freedom of Information Co-ordinator
North Lanarkshire Council
Contact by email

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Dear Mr. Matchett

Request for Information

I refer to your email of 1 December 2022 seeking information in relation
to external legal advice.

Having investigated, I regret to advise you that there is no straight
forward way to provide the information requested.  By way of explanation, 
while we do use the services of external solicitors a lot of this work is
not providing legal advice.  In many cases we are instructing external
solicitors to carry out work on behalf of the Council, for example
defending litigated claims in the Court of Session (where we cannot appear
ourselves).  There are also some cases where we seek advice which then
progresses to an instruction to carry out work and it would be difficult
to separate out the fees that related only to legal advice.  Accordingly,
to extract the information as sought in your request, would require the
manual interrogation of a large number of legal files for a 3-year
period.  That, as you can appreciate would be highly labour intensive and
I must advise that the cost of so doing would exceed the amount prescribed
for the purposes of Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland)
Act 2002.

I acknowledge that this response is less helpful than I would have
wished.  However, to be of some assistance, we could provide information
on amounts spent on external solicitors for all legal work.  If you would
like to receive such information, please let me know.

I can advise that North Lanarkshire Council, having regard to the
provisions of Section 21 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act
2002, has established a procedure whereby any person who has requested
information and is in any way dissatisfied with the decision on that
request, can within forty working days require a review of that decision
by writing to the Chief Officer of Legal and Democratic, Civic Centre,
Windmillhill Street, Motherwell ML1 1AB.  Accordingly, if you are
dissatisfied with this decision and seek such review please write to the
Chief Officer of Legal and Democratic. 

I would advise, also, that in terms of Section 47 of the Act a person who
is dissatisfied with a notice given by the local authority under Section
21 of the Act - ie. a notice following a review of a decision by a local
authority, or by the failure of a local authority to give such a notice -
may make application to the Scottish Information Commissioner for a
decision as to whether, in any respect specified in that application, the
request for information to which the requirement relates has been dealt
with in accordance with the Act.  Such an application must be made within
six months of the review decision and be in writing or in another form
which, by reason of it having some permanency is capable of being used for
subsequent reference. The application must state the name of the applicant
and provide an address for correspondence. The application must also
specify the request for information to which the requirement for review
relates, the matter which gave rise to the applicant’s dissatisfaction
with the original decision of the local authority and the matter which
gives rise to the applicant’s dissatisfaction with the decision on review
by the local authority or the failure of the local authority to issue such
a decision.  The Scottish Information Commissioner can be contacted as
follows:- 

Scottish Information Commissioner 

Kinburn Castle 

Doubledykes Road 

St. Andrews 

KY16  9DS 

email: [1][email address] 

Appeals to the Scottish Information Commissioner can also be made online
via the following link: - 

[2]www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal 

I hope this information is sufficient for your purpose.  If, however, you
require further information – or I can assist in any other way – please
let me know. 

Yours sincerely

Neil McKay

Freedom of Information Co-ordinator

North Lanarkshire Council

Democratic and Legal Services

Please contact by email

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