Wage bill for Parker's team tops £9 million as fifth consultant joins the team

The grand old gravy train is rollin' down the tracks yet again at SOJ headquarters.

As the Gang of Five - now, I suppose, the Gang of Six - stumbles from scandal to scandal, it's come out that Ein Kompanieführer has decreed that the public will be footing the bill for another one of his pet sycophants.

So, who's our shiny, expensive newest consultant? A Mr. John Laverick, former corporate suit at, er, Carillion, the construction firm which collapsed earlier this year after racking up £7 billion in debts and is now under investigation by the Insolvency Service in the UK. Fresh from overseeing the biggest compulsory liquidation in British legal history, Laverick is now Parker's "chief information officer" - in English, the new head of IT. He's the latest addition to Parker's hit squad, now comprising four UK consultants being paid something between £1,200 and £1,400 a day. Yes, folks, you heard that right, over a thousand quid a day.

Or are they?

According to the rag's coverage, someone - presumably a disgruntled civil servant - has handed them new information suggesting that these ludicrous rates have actually gone up - their source has suggested that the bill for the Gang of Five has crept up to over £9 million in less than a year.

Parker and co. must be laughing all the way to the bank.