RIBA Paid Former President Alan Jones £150,000 to Settle Legal Dispute
RIBA paid former president Alan Jones £150,000 to settle a dispute over leaked personal information, draft annual accounts seen by Architect's Journal reveal.
- Author
- By Grace Kim
- Filed
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- 2 min read
Key takeaways
- RIBA paid £150,000 to former president Alan Jones, listed as a settlement agreement in draft annual accounts seen by Architect's Journal.
- The dispute stems from RIBA's handling of personal information leaked to the press in 2020 after a serious incident report to the Charity Commission.
- RIBA settled the claim in 2025, with chair Jack Pringle expressing regret over unauthorised leaks and the harm caused to Jones and his family.
The Royal Institute of British Architects paid £150,000 to its former president Alan Jones, concluding a long-running legal dispute over the institute's handling of his personal information.
The payment appears in a draft of RIBA's annual financial report seen by Architect's Journal (AJ), which broke the news yesterday. In the draft, the sum is listed as a "settlement agreement" paid to an "ex-officio trustee." The AJ established that this trustee was Jones.
The dispute dates to 2020. In early that year, RIBA submitted a "serious incident report" involving Jones to the Charity Commission, its regulator, and the architect temporarily stepped down as president. Details of the report were subsequently leaked to the media.
Jones, a Northern Ireland-based architect and academic, had become RIBA president in September 2019. He returned to the role in June 2020 after an independent investigation by law firm Browne Jacobson cleared him to resume office.
RIBA settled the dispute in 2025. At the time, the institute acknowledged the harm caused by the leaks.
"RIBA has reached a confidential settlement with the past president of RIBA, professor Alan Jones, in respect of his claim that information relating to him was not adequately protected and controlled by RIBA," RIBA chair Jack Pringle said in a statement.
"RIBA regrets the fact that unauthorised leaks occurred and the harm that this caused professor Jones and his family," Pringle added.
When contacted by AJ, RIBA said it is "bound by its confidentiality obligations, which prevent further comment." The payment to Jones itself remains uncontested.
Jones was succeeded as president by Simon Allford in 2021. Allford was followed by Muyiwa Oki and then by the current president, Chris Williamson.
Williamson, co-founder of Weston Williamson + Partners, recently gave up his architect title in protest at what he called the "absurdity of the current regulatory framework" of the Architects Registration Board (ARB).
The £150,000 figure now sits in RIBA's draft accounts, offering the first public measure of the financial cost of the 2020 leaks — a cost the institute has otherwise kept confidential.
Original: architectsjournal.co.uk
