Lewisham Council has spent more than £100,000 paying the wages of 21 members of suspended staff, new figures reveal.

The council paid the £127,035 over four years, but was not able to break down the suspensions by year or by council service in case any individuals were able to be identified.

This spend is significantly less than nearby Southwark Council, which spent more than £650,000 paying the wages of 110 suspended staff.

The spend was also less than Greenwich Council, which spent £554,437 paying the wages of nearly 100 suspended staff over the same period.

But Lewisham Council’s staff suspensions for this financial year, which ends in March 2019, is already the second highest in the period – with £15,442 paid out over 230 days.

The 2014/15 period saw the highest spend on suspended staff, with the council paying £90,893 to suspended staff who were off work for 1,233 days.

This dropped to £7,969 in 2015/16 with 618 days of pay for suspended staff.

The 2016/17 year saw only £3,709 spent over 55 days of suspensions, which then nearly trebled to £9,039 spent over 170 days in 2017/18.

Staff are likely to have been suspended during serious misconduct accusations, where there was a risk they might interfere with an investigation or impact on the reputation of the council.

Council employees are legally entitled to be paid during an investigation.

According to the freedom of information (FOI) request, three staff members were dismissed following their suspensions.

“Due to the low numbers of employees involved, we are unable to release the figures by year as there is a risk of individuals being identified,” the FOI response explained.

“We can however confirm that the aggregated total from 2014 to the current time is 21 members of staff.”