Australian Public Service Commission Legal services expenditure for financial year 1 July 2008 – 30 June 2009

Paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Legal Services Directions 2005 (the Directions) provides:

“The Chief Executive of an FMA Agency is responsible for ensuring that:

…

(ba) the agency’s legal services purchasing, including expenditure, is appropriately recorded and monitored and that by 30 October each year, the agency makes publicly available records of its legal services expenditure for the previous financial year”

This is a statement of legal services expenditure by the Australian Public Service Commission for the period 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009, published in compliance with paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Directions.

The Commission's total legal services expenditure (internal and external) for 2008-09 was $623,050.12.

The Commission's external legal services expenditure for 2008-09 was $179,728.94 including GST.

The Commission's internal legal services expenditure for 2008-09 was $443,321.18 (including GST where relevant).  This expenditure includes the following items:

• indirect salary costs (super, leave entitlements);
• direct overhead (cost of desks, computer, stationery);
• indirect overhead (apportioned rent, electricity, etc); and
• legal unit overhead (specialist software licences, cost of law library).

Explanatory notes

The relevant employees performed a variety of duties, some legal and some non-legal (such as secretariat support for the Commission’s audit committee, administration of Freedom of Information requests etc).  It is not possible to identify separately the time spent by these employees on legal matters.  The cost above assumes they are performing legal roles at all times.