Unaccountable academy heads : stories like this will become more common

[TalkinPeace]

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/13/headteacher-banned-thousands-pounds-personal-expenses

The "lighter touch" has been an utter disaster in the finance industry.
Lack of oversight and accountability always leads to problems
And yet BILLIONS of pounds of school budgets are being removed from Public Sector audit scrutiny.

Prepare for LOTS more stories like this.

I am. They do. There is lots of additional guidance available, for auditors, too.

Of course, good, relevant, useful guidance existing and people reading it are two different things. But that's always the case.

Agree with Herc
there is lots of guidance, but taking horses to water and all that ....

scary that schools can afford 150 monogrammed chairs for the theatre but only hire NQTs ....

Any system is only as good as (a) its design allows it to be (b) the people who operate it.

Schools which used to be under LA control benefitted from systems which while possibly not the most well designed the world has ever known, were at the least well tried, understood by everyone, and benefitting from economies of scale etc. Newly converted academies have in many cases had to set up their own systems, with not necessarily appropriate people in place to then run them. Change usually ->teething problems. And as we all know - chaos is a ladder.

My chief concerns about academies though are mainly focussed on the consequences for the rump of non academy schools in an area with several converters, and the unintended consequences for the converters themselves.

The one thing I'm not worried about is the quality of the audits the new academies will be subjected to. If anything, those will be better than before. But that will hardly compensate for the other negative consequences.

My dds academy is brilliant, much better than when I went. Apparently they have 1 million sitting in their account which can be drawn on to help with overseas trips etc. They have excellent facilities including an art centre, a working hair and beauty salon and sports facilities. I haven't up to now found anything I am worried about. The old head who was head of the state senior retired and we now have a head from a very good school with an excellent reputation.

I just realised that the teacher in question was actually most recently the head of a non academy school (a school where I have a friend in the parent body). She was apparently appoints as head even though the governors knew she had these charges hanging over her. As I said - a non academy school.

happened at this academy

The schools exec officer had even given his wife and ds salaries though they weren't working at the school. Loads of money went missing.

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/04/reflections-on-the-priory/

The top post here is interesting, talking about how other schools in the area were affected by the money that the school affected by fraud had.

Talkin, in some schools monogrammed chairs are sometimes easier to deploy

bear in mind though that in an academy you whistle blow to the dfe who send in independent auditors who them publish a report of republic consumption. In most maintained schools, you whistle blow to the LA or some local arrangement and it is dealt with rather quietly and certainly not published as widely as it would in an academy or free school. so it may not be truly representative.
I know the LAs where I worked at and the LA where I live like to keep things quiet in the interest of minimum disruption to teaching and learning. they sign compromises and move people on with minimum fuss. sometimes the local media get wind of something but it never makes the national press. Even the whistleblowing that was done to ofsted which we all wanted more details about was never published even though it resulted in the whole governing body 'resigning'

Chairs v NQTs: Does the "golden rule" (capital v running costs) not apply in schools there days? Did it ever? Are there differences between adacemy and LEA schools in this respect?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27489698

Since when are chairs capital expenditure .... they replaced existing chairs and will be trashed in a couple of years

capital budgets are for long life assets

Furniture is usually counted as capital assets.

Is it different in LA accounting rules? And did/does the 'golden rule' apply in LA budgets? Or have schools specifically always been able to transfer in either direction?

Maybe a monogrammed chair is a capital asset, but a bog-standard plastic, stackable chair?!