Ministers “squandered” £20,000 on legal fees trying to hide how much it paid influencers to promote a back-to-school campaign – which is more than the celebrities were paid.
After a two-and-a-half-year transparency battle with Schools Week, the Cabinet Office revealed last year it paid a total of £13,000 to TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher and celebrity GP Dr Philippa Kaye to support the government’s post-lockdown push to get pupils back in classrooms.
The department was in the process of taking court action over our freedom of information (FOI) request, but dropped the case at the last minute and handed over the information.
Now, a new FOI request has revealed the Cabinet Office spent £19,683 on legal fees to fight publication of the information.
