Cash-strapped school must reveal £500k legal bill over head’s parent lawsuit!

Pensby High must disclose total legal costs in the headteacher’s £500k lawsuit funded from school accounts

A Wirral school that once warned parents it couldn’t afford heating has been ordered to disclose how much it spent on a staggering £500,000 legal battle, triggered by its own headteacher’s lawsuit against two parents.

Pensby High School, already facing scrutiny for financial strain, confirmed it funded headmaster Kevin Flanagan’s harassment claim against Keith and Stephanie Critchley. The head sought £20,000 in damages. But legal estimates from last September pegged the total cost of proceedings at an eye-watering £545,000.

Despite concerns over public money, the school refused to reveal exactly how much it paid Brabners, the independent law firm representing Flanagan. It insisted any legal bills were covered by “self-generated income,” not taxpayer funds.

However, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council revealed back in January that £210,576.79 had already been transferred from the school’s account to Brabners—a figure that immediately raised eyebrows.

Local man James Griffiths filed a Freedom of Information request demanding the full breakdown of the legal costs and their funding sources. The school’s governing body turned him down, claiming disclosure would unfairly affect the headteacher’s privacy and that it didn’t hold details about which income source covered which expenditure.

But Griffiths argued that those funding details must have been disclosed to Brabners under mandatory anti-money laundering checks. At a hearing before the First-tier Tribunal, he contended transparency was essential, especially given the scale of spending in a school with previously documented financial hardship.

Judge Sophie Buckley ruled partially in Griffiths’s favour. While she accepted that the school may not keep itemised records of which pot paid which bill, she found no reason to doubt Brabners had met its regulatory obligations. Crucially, she ordered the school to disclose the total amount paid to the firm.

Her decision hinged on a letter sent to parents by the school in September 2022. In it, Pensby High admitted it was struggling with soaring energy costs and said it would delay switching on the heating. Once activated, the heating would be capped at 19 degrees Celsius.

Judge Buckley said this communication demonstrated “the importance of transparency” regarding large, atypical spending decisions—especially in an institution already facing serious cost pressures. Legal bills of this scale, she noted, do not fall within standard school expenditure.

Brabners, speaking to The Law Gazette, confirmed its fees were paid not from the school’s operational budget, but from funds raised by the charitable trust that oversees Pensby High. However, critics argue this distinction is far from reassuring, given the trust’s central role in school operations and the implications for wider education spending.

For many, the case raises difficult questions about governance, financial transparency, and priorities in education. Why did a school battling energy poverty fund a headteacher’s high-stakes personal legal battle? Who authorised the payments? And should parents and local taxpayers be left in the dark about how education funds—charitable or otherwise—are spent?

With the tribunal ruling now on the record, Pensby High will be forced to disclose the full financial burden of its legal foray. Whether that brings clarity or fresh controversy remains to be seen.