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Reporting local life since 1854 37pFriday, May 13, 2011
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YOUR £5m BILLBY ALEX [email protected]
ALMOST £5 million of taxpayers’money has been paid out by councils to‘no win, no fee’ lawyers who have woncompensation claims over three years.
Figures obtained by The Sentinelshow £4 million was paid in compens-ation to individual claimants by theregion’s three main councils.
But over the same period, solicitorsrepresenting those claimants nettedmore than £4.7 million in costs.
The three-year figures reveal:■ Stoke-on-Trent City Council has paid£1.7 million compensation to the publicand £2.2 million in costs to solicitors;■ Staffordshire County Council haspaid £1.7 million compensation and £1.6million in legal costs;■ Cheshire East Council has paid£587,000 in compensation and £856,000in legal costs.
The data reveals scores of cases wherelegal costs have out-stripped pay-outs.
The cases include:■ A claimant receiving £4,250 for a leginjury on Staffordshire County Councilproperty while the legal firm picked up£18,000;■ A claimant receiving £17 for an eyeinjury while the lawyer got £2,480;■ A claimant who broke a bone on afaulty footpath got £4,000 while theirlawyer pocketed £23,000.
The data, which contains the most up-to-date three-year figures for each coun-cil, has been released as the Govern-ment pledges to tackle Britain’sburgeoning “compensation culture”.
Draft legislative changes put forwardby Justice Secretary Ken Clarke are setto stop lawyers claiming “success fees”from the losing side in liability cases.Instead, they would receive a share ofthe damages.
But legal firms say the costs are jus-tified because some cases are complexand the current rules help poorer cli-ents make claims.
A spokesman for Stoke-on-Trent’sAttwood Solicitors said: “We’re not tak-ing money from local authoritieswithout justification.
“A lot of the time, more careful repairsmay lead to these claims beingavoided.”
The figures reveal members of thepublic made 1,505 claims against thecity council between April 2008 and theend of March. Of those, 1,042 were rejec-ted at no cost to the authority.
In the same period, 168 claims weremade by the council’s employees, with39 of them knocked back.
Paul Simpson, the council’s businessservices director, said: “Once we haveestablished the legitimacy of all claims,the information is sent to the council’sinsurers. They consider all claims ontheir legal merits and communicatedirectly with the claimant or theclaimant’s solicitors.
“The vast majority of claims arerejected, but some unsuccessfulclaimants do take the council to courtand it is then for the court to determinewhich party is liable, based on theevidence available.”
Lawyers defend themselves: See Page 6
True cost of ‘compensationculture’ as lawyers rake it in
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