The Leveson Inquiry has spent more than half a million pounds of public funds on barristers' fees since the inquiry into media standards launched six months ago.

The bulk of the legal fees (£536,100) spent between July 2011 and 31 January 2012 have gone to the core counsel on the inquiry – 39 Essex Street's Robert Jay QC (pictured), Temple Garden Chambers' David Barr and Carine Patry Hoskins of Landmark Chambers.

Some of the fees have also gone to 5 Essex Court's Lucinda Boon, who joined the team of counsel more recently.

The inquiry has also spent an additional £89,500 on a team of more junior barristers assisting counsel, taking total fees to barristers over the six month period to £625,600.

Details of the legal fees are contained in a quarterly expenditure report published on the Leveson Inquiry's website, which shows that the total costs of the Inquiry to date have reached £1.99m.

Fees paid out to individual barristers are not disclosed in the report, but a spokesman confirmed individual rates are in accordance with the Attorney General's panel of counsel. According to these rates, the four barristers are being paid between £100 to £280 per hour depending on seniority.

Lord Justice Leveson is not paid directly by the inquiry, and is instead receiving his £196,707 salary from his existing employment as a judge, but the inquiry has paid £82,000 for other judges to take his place in the Court of Appeal in his absence.

The assessors advising Leveson – which include the former political editor of the Daily Telegraph, George Jones, and former Financial Times chief executive Sir David Bell – have been paid £67,500, of which £44,700 was paid out in the past three months.

Overall, the inquiry had run up a bill of £855,000 from July to the end of October. That figure increased by £1.1m in November, December and January when the regular public hearings began.

The news comes after it emerged last week the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is to be shut down amid the ongoing inquiry.

The PCC, which was first established in 1991 to enable non-statutory self-regulation of the press, has come under intense fire in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, but the news of the shutdown has been questioned by some City media lawyers given that it comes ahead of Leveson's findings, which are due to be published in October.