More than £500,000 a year is being paid to council staff in the Lothians, who are suspended from work, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

The Scotsman report: 

TAXPAYERS in the Lothians are forking out more than £11,000 a week in wages for suspended local authority staff, new figures have revealed.

Employees are being paid £47,000 per month to sit at home while cases are 
investigated.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that 22 workers at the four councils in the region are currently on gardening leave, with the annual total coming to £565,680.

You can read the full story here. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.