One of Oxford University’s most famous colleges has been criticised by the Charity Commission for spending £6.6m on legal and public relations fees amid a dispute with its former dean.

Christ Church college, which has charitable status and dates to Henry VIII’s reign in 1546, racked up the bills relating to the dispute between 2018 and 2022 with its former dean Martyn Percy.

Of the £6.6m spent on the dispute, £5.3m “appears to have been approved retrospectively”, the Commission investigation found.

An official warning has been issued to the charity for mismanagement and/or misconduct after the regulator found that the “trustees failed to manage the charity’s resources responsibly”.

The Commission’s investigation found that the trustees had “failed to act on” previous advice from the regulator given between 2019 and 2020 to have “close oversight of costs” related to the dispute. In 2020 the regulator had told both parties involved to enter formal mediation.

However, in December last year the trustees were unable to provide timely information about how costs connected to the dispute were being managed.

It also emerged that trustees had not set a budget for costs related to the dispute “and instead the full trustee body agreed expenditure retrospectively”.

Another concern was that the charity had referred to costs associated with the disagreement as “other direct costs – teaching, research and residential” in published accounts for the years ending 2018 through to 2021.

As part of the official warning the charity has been asked to complete a “full independent governance review”. This has already launched and is being led by Dominic Grieve, the barrister, former Conservative MP and cabinet member while serving as attorney general from 2010 to 2014.

“These long and protracted disputes risked undermining the reputation of Christ Church and harming wider trust in charities,” said Charity Commission director of regulatory services Helen Earner.

“It is not for us as regulator to take sides in disputes. Our role is to ensure that charities are governed effectively and that charitable funds are properly accounted for.

“All trustees must demonstrate sound financial stewardship, regardless of the level of resources available to them.

“We consider that the actions of the trustees at Christ Church amount to mismanagement and/or misconduct, after they failed to manage the charity’s resources responsibly or ensure that the charity is accountable in the context of a costly dispute.

Earner added: “Good governance should be a priority for all trustees, especially those involved in important national institutions such as Christ Church, Oxford.”

Christ Church’s alumni includes Edward VII, Lewis Carroll and Victorian PM William Gladstone.

“In very complex and constantly changing circumstances, trustees made decisions which, having taken professional advice, they judged to be in the best interests of Christ Church,” said a spokesperson for the College.

The spokesperson added that the costs had been incurred after Percy declined to settle with the College’s government body “which had lost trust and confident in him”.

In addition, an allegation of sexual harassment had been made against Percy and any such allegation “will always be thoroughly investigated and addressed”.

"Following the official warning, Christ Church will continue to work closely with the Charity Commission and is pleased to report that the implementation of their recommendation to review Christ Church’s governance is already well underway," added the spokesperson.

“Dominic Grieve KC has made substantial progress in the independent Governance Review which Christ Church initiated with the intention of introducing improvements into the governance structure of the charity and is looking forward to hearing his recommendations.

“In particular, Christ Church hopes to reform its procedures so as to enable any future disputes of this nature to be resolved fairly and cost-effectively.”

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