How can a school overspend by £800k ithout anyone noticing

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

No wonder the head has 'resigned' Tiffin, Kingston
several of my son's friends hoping to go there September - not good...

My brother went there! Bloody hell.

Tiffin was the school that abandoned homework (not that those two events are linked).

They're asking for donations. Fair enough--it's an excellent school in lots of fields and it doesn't seem fair that Kingston taxpayers (among them my parents) should have to pay even more for a school so many 'out of borough' parents benefit from.

Those of who pay fees will be rolling our eyes at the thought of 'only' paying £1,300 instead of £10,000 plus.

abraid, you choose to go private - Tiffin is a state school so parents shouldn't have to pay anything at all!

A friend of mine who sent me the link lives in Kingston, and said people there are spitting feathers because there is no catchment, so people come from miles around (literally - supposedly even from Portsmouth 65 miles away ), and the local people will pick up the tab.

I agree with Edam.

(I should just copy & paste that into every post to save time! )

It's a state school so the parents shouldn't have to pay anything.

It's a state school funded by the council tax payers of Kingston. Most of the pupils come from out of the borough. Why should my parents (who live there) have to pay MORE for the school? That was my thrust!

I know several out-of-borough parents with children there (very bright kids). They live in large detached houses in Esher and Walton. Can you tell me why it is unreasonable to ask them to make a donation? Because I sure as anything can't see that it's inequitable.

God knows why the governors didn't ntice, or the finance committee!

My friend is very upset - they have a DS (9) whom they would desperately hope will go there because they definitely can't afford any kind of fees, but she is anxious about the 'voluntary' nature of any contribution

i'm with feenie.
lots of questions - would like to see their finance and FGB minutes over the last couple of years lol, it does seem a bit unlikely that they 'lost track of spending' over a month or two when the finance staff changed...

You can see the finance committee. Ask for them - as a public body they are required to make these available.

Have to say the school - like many grammar schools - see themselves as bigger than the students, parents, LEA etc. Why should the LEA (money otherwise that would go to the rest of the education budget) subsidise a corporate failure like this. Who do they think there are, bankers?

I worked in a school that was financially mismanaged, someone misunderstood a financial agreement and thought a one off payment was going to happen every year. We had to make teachers and support staff redundant as a result.

I realised there was no job security, it was one of the reasons I left/

@ coppertop!

Surprise surprise, the school tries to blame the parents. Of course. The headteacher's got nothing to do with it at all!

It's a ruddy state school, they have no right to demand any money from parents at all and if they assumed they would get £800k they are bloody stupid IMO.

I think there is a widespread problem in many schools actually. Teachers become teachers because they want to inculcate a love of learning. They don't want to do a pile of administration or understand how to balance a budget. Unfortunately, that's exactly what teachers end up doing if they get promoted far enough ...

What the hell were the Governors thinking of? Why weren't they scrutinizing the accounts properly?

It's shocking but hasn't totally surprised me.

Reminds me of a few years ago when around 50 or so private schools were fined heavily for illegal practices in fee-fixing. My dd's school wrote a letter of 'apology' - they hadn't understood the law (wtf? - since when has ignorance been a form of defence?!!) and sent it along with the increased bill, as obviously the costs for their cock-up were passed on to parents.

The school here is a state school which takes pupils from well outside the locality. No way should the local residents have to cough up for others' mismanagement.
( Although that's often the way it goes isn't it? wanker bankers screwing up the economy and the rest of us bailing them out....????)

My husband is a shrewd business brain and a governor of our local primary. He says the accounts are laid out in such a way that they are almost incomprehensible.

quatt makes a good point. I think there is certainly a good case to be made for bringing 'managers' into schools. Many teachers vehemently object to this.

I am a governor - and I agree that the accounts are pretty complicated. But governors are expected to "sign off" the accounts annually - so either the Tiffin governors did this without even looking at them, or didn't do it at all. Either way, they weren't fulfilling their statutory duties,a nd shoulf resign. Have they?

I'm a Chair of Governors, and the Finance Committee and I go through the Budget and year to date expenditure every time we meet, identify where we've over-spent and ask a lot of questions. And yes, I have to sign the accounts off and collectively, we are responsible for the school's good financial management. It's baffling how the school could get itself into that state "without realising".

The Head shouldn't take the whole rap - it's collective responsibility and the Governing Body should have had the training to realise that things were going badly wrong.

One article I read seemed to imply that the school knew they were overspending but didn't realise the reserves they were dipping into to cover the overspend were so depleted.

I agree that state schools shouldn't be asking parents to contribute a fixed amount per year. I'd expect to be asked to contribute to some school trips (theatre etc) but not a set amount each year. Having said that Tiffin knows it is better than most of the local private schools so probably feels able to ask for this contribution which is significantly less than private school fees and I imagine has started seeing more requests from parents seeking to move their dc from private schools because of the credit crunch.

My ds is at private school so at least I knew from the outset what level of 'contribution' I'd be asked to make !

ds's state primary sent us all a letter when we got our places, suggesting we might want to support the PTA with a regular direct debit. Cheeky buggers.