RIBA Paid Former President Alan Jones £150,000 in Legal Settlement

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 figure appears in a draft of RIBA's annual financial report, seen by the British magazine Architect's Journal (AJ), which broke the news yesterday. The draft lists the payment as a "settlement agreement" to an "ex-officio trustee". The AJ established that this referred to Jones.

RIBA has said it is "bound by its confidentiality obligations, which prevent further comment", according to AJ. The payment itself, however, is not in dispute.

What sparked the dispute?

The conflict dates back to 2020, when RIBA's handling of personal information and allegations about Jones was leaked to the press.

Jones, a Northern Ireland-based architect and academic, became RIBA president in September 2019. In early 2020, RIBA submitted a "serious incident report" involving Jones to its regulator, the Charity Commission, and the architect temporarily stepped down as president. Details of that report were subsequently leaked to the media.

Jones returned to his role in June 2020 after an independent investigation by law firm Browne Jacobson cleared him to return to office.

What did RIBA say when the case settled?

The dispute was settled in 2025. At the time, RIBA chair Jack Pringle issued a statement regretting the "unauthorised" disclosure of information about its president.

"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," Pringle said.

"RIBA regrets the fact that unauthorised leaks occurred and the harm that this caused professor Jones and his family."

Who has led RIBA since Jones?

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 drew attention by giving 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 disclosed in the draft accounts makes the cost of the 2020 leaks concrete for the first time, and raises the question of whether the Charity Commission — which received the original serious incident report — will revisit how the institute handled the affair.