The Legal Services Commission will pay out more than £7m in redundancy payments as part of its restructuring programme to cut costs.

Replying to a freedom of information act request, the LSC said it had spent £7,196,813 on voluntary and compulsory redundancies between May 2010 and May 2011.

It said the figure includes sums paid to people who have already left and the ‘estimated spend’ by the time the process is complete.

The reply reveals that 94 people have so far been made redundant.

The five employees who received the largest amounts shared almost £1m between them (£945,790).

The biggest payout was £275,400.

The LSC said it was unable to confirm the names or job titles of the people concerned because the redundancy agreements were ‘private and ­confidential’.

However, it is understood that those who have left the organisation include the head of civil and family policy Sara Kovach-Clark, head of criminal policy Vanessa Bailey, senior lawyer Colin Stutt, and Patrick Reeve, who had until his departure been on secondment with the Ministry of Justice.

An LSC spokesman said: ‘The government's priority is to reduce the fiscal deficit and like every other public body the LSC has to make efficiencies.’

He said the 94 redundancies made to date are expected to save £5.4m a year in future salary costs, and by 2014 the administrative budget is expected to have fallen by 23%.

He added: ‘Most of the redundancies were voluntary and no-one has been paid more than they are contractually entitled to, nor have the redundancy payments come from the legal aid budget.’

The College of Law said recently it is to offer voluntary redundancies.