Legal services expenditure 2016-17

Paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Legal Services Directions 2017 provides:

"The accountable authority of a non-corporate Commonwealth entity is responsible for ensuring that:

(ba) the entity's legal services purchasing, including expenditure, is appropriately recorded and monitored and that by 30 October each year, the entity 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 2016 to 30 June 2017, published in compliance with paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Directions.

The Commission's total legal services expenditure (internal and external) for 2016-17 was $710,277.50.

The Commission's external legal services expenditure for 2016-17 was $324,142,50 excluding GST.

The Commission's internal legal services expenditure for 2016-17 was $386,135.00 (excluding GST). This expenditure includes the following items:

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

Explanatory notes

The figures do not include amounts paid to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for registration of legislative instruments and the annual Federal Register of Legislation fee.

The employees in the Commission’s legal section performed a variety of duties, some legal and some non-legal (such as administration of freedom of information requests). It is not possible to identify separately the time spent by these employees on legal matters. The costs reported above assume they are performing legal roles at all times.