School ordered to provide information on legal costs of harassment claim brought by headteacher against two parents

Allowing the appeal in part, Judge Sophie Buckley concluded in Griffiths v The Information Commissioner [2025] UKFTT 694 (GRC) (17 June 2025) that the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject were “outweighed by the legitimate interests in disclosure”.

The initial dispute began in March 2022, when a parent allegedly became “aggressive and highly abusive” towards the school’s headteacher during a meeting at school about his younger daughter.

Following what was described as a “sustained campaign of harassment, stalking and intimidation”, the headteacher launched legal action against the parents of two pupils, supported by the school’s governors.

The estimated costs of the legal action have been in the public domain since approximately September 2024, when the Liverpool Echo published an article including the estimated costs provided to the court by the solicitors for the claimant.

The claimant's costs of the entire proceedings were forecast at that stage to be approximately £545,000.

The Tribunal noted: “The school has confirmed publicly that it is funding the action, but it is not publicly known whether this is in part or in full. The school have stated that any costs of the legal action paid by the school will be covered by self-generated income and not sourced from public funds.”

It added: “In January 2025 Wirral Council confirmed publicly that £210.576.79 was paid to the relevant solicitors from the School's account. Although that renders some part of the appeal academic, there are two parts of the request and the tribunal deemed that it was appropriate to determine the appeal.”

In the present case, the claimant, Mr Griffiths, appealed against a decision notice by the Information Commissioner, which held that the Governing Body of the school did not hold any further information within the scope of the request and was entitled to rely on section 40(2) (personal information) to withhold the information it had not provided.

Mr Griffiths had requested the following information from the school on 9 February 2024:

"[1] The total amount to date in sterling of all the legal costs, including but not limited to solicitors' fees, disbursements and the preparation and submission of court documents in the actions against [the parents] by the Governors, Trustees and headteacher of [the school].

"[2] Please break down the above to provide the amounts and the percentages of the whole of each of the following sources of funding

1. Delegated funding to the schools, ie tax-payer's money;
2. Donations and fund-raising;
3. Contributions from the claimant(s);
4. Specified other, for example, insurance."

On 10 April 2024, the school refused to confirm or deny that it held the requested information under section 40(5B) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

On internal review, the school confirmed that it held information within the scope of the request but relied on section 43 FOIA (commercial interests) to withhold it.

The Tribunal noted that during the course of the Information Commissioner's investigation, the school provided some information relating to part 2. However, in relation to the information it held within part 1 it relied on section 40(2) to withhold the information.

The claimant argued that the sources of the funds must have been disclosed in detail to the law firm representing the school, Brabners, to meet the firm’s due diligence obligation under anti-money laundering regulations.

In his appeal to the Tribunal, the claimant relied on the following grounds:

• The Commissioner was wrong to conclude that no information was held withing the scope of part 2 of the request.
• The Commissioner was wrong to conclude that the information was personal data.
• The Commissioner was wrong to conclude that the legitimate interest was overridden by the rights and freedoms of the data subject.

He made the following broad points, summarised by the Tribunal as follows: 

1. It is unheard of for a state school to bring a claim of this magnitude against anyone.
2. Money spent by the school on this litigation cannot be spent on enhancing the educational provision of pupils.
3. Interested parties such as tax-payers, parents and fund-raisers should know where the money is coming from.
4. It is in the public interest for the public to know if the claimant(s) is/are indemnified by the school and if the costs are covered by self-generated income.
5. [The headteacher] contests the assertion that there is a single pool of income. He states that there is a distinction between devolved funding and private income and that devolved funding can only be used for specified purposes.
6. This is not private personal information because the allegations are in court documents available to the public.
7. It is the disclosure of who is paying the costs that is the issue.
8. The school wrote to parents in September 2022 identifying rising costs of gas and electricity and stating that they do not have the income to match the rising costs. He submits that these are the opportunity costs of the legal fees.
9. The Commissioner refers to 'numerous incidents' but if they are a reference to allegations against the defendants to the claim, these are being contested in the court case.

Considering the appeal, Judge Sophie Buckley found the school did not hold records of which source of funding is being used for a particular item of expenditure.

She said: “We have no reason to doubt that the solicitors have complied with their obligations under money laundering regulations, but that does not assist. The school does not hold records which distinguish which source of funding is being used for a particular item of expenditure. The costs are simply deducted from the school's overall budget. The school would accordingly not have been in a position to provide the requested amounts and percentages to the solicitors either.”

However, the judge concluded the total figure of costs should be provided to the claimant. She referred to the letter in which the school warned parents it could not meet rapid rises in gas and electricity costs from the current school budget and had to find efficiencies.

The letter concluded by saying that it would delay putting the heating on for as long as possible and then would keep it to 19 degrees. 

The judge ruled the letter “illustrates the importance of scrutiny and transparency where significant sums of money are spent from the school budget, on matters such as the one in issue in this appeal.”

She added: “Whilst there is some transparency, because the figure will be included in the budget as part of a more general category, we take the view that it is important for there to be transparency for a significant item of expenditure which is not part of the usual annual expenditure for a school.

“Schools have to make difficult decisions about what they spend their money on, and it is important that those decisions can be scrutinised and interrogated by an informed public.”

She concluded: “For those reasons, we [the Tribunal] conclude that the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject are outweighed in this case by the legitimate interests in disclosure. The appeal is allowed.”

Lottie Winson