The impoverished BBC - which can barely afford a pot to piss in, if you believe its regular tales of financial woe - spent more than £1.1 million fighting pay and race inequality claims brought by disgruntled employees.
The astonishing figure was revealed in a BBC letter to MPs on the influential House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
The letter, by BBC Head of Corporate Affairs, Andrew Scadding, reveals that since July 2017 - the date when the BBC began publishing the names of staff paid more than £150,000 per annum - the Corporation's in-house lawyers spent 2,452 hours working on inequality cases.
The BBC engaged external lawyers for an additional 2,688 hours and was billed £1,121,652 for their services. The figure does not include any tribunal claims still ongoing.
In January 2020 we reported that the BBC had paid more than £3m in settlement to claimants. Given the passage of time, that figure is likely to be significantly higher. Less than a month ago we reported that the BBC had made more than £26m in redundancy payments in last year.
Apparently begrudging at having to disclose the latest figures, Scadding added that the BBC needed to divert resources to formulate its response.
Julian Knight MP, who chairs the Committee, said: "It is unbelievable that the BBC has spent more than £1m of licence fee payers' money fighting claims brought by its own staff about equal pay and race discrimination.
"Money that could have gone into making programmes or alleviating licence-fee costs for the over-75s has instead been used to pay the salaries of barristers and lawyers.
"The BBC's line that it had to divert resources in order to gather the information we requested is frankly completely unacceptable and shows a disregard for public scrutiny."
He added: "And this at a time when the Corporation is struggling to balance its books with hundreds of journalists' jobs being cut.
"This disclosure sits uncomfortably against the BBC's claim that it offers value for money.
"It must now offer a full explanation of how legal costs were allowed to escalate to such levels. We will be calling on the newly appointed BBC chair Richard Sharp to investigate as a priority."
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