Concern over £138k credit card bill racked up by school staff member

Liam Randall, local democracy reporter

Concerns have been raised after a school staff member racked up a huge bill of more than £138,000 on a corporate credit card.

The large expenditure, which occurred over a period of just under three-and-a-half-years, was carried out in the line of their employment at two schools in Flintshire.

Flintshire Council said it had investigated the spending by the unnamed individual, and no evidence of impropriety was identified.

However, education officials have since banned schools from having corporate credit cards following a review of their use.

The issue was flagged at a meeting of backbench councillors on Monday (September 9, 2024), where the leader of the council’s Liberal Democrat group raised doubts over the strength of the local authority’s financial procedures.

‘Legitimate’

Andrew Parkhurst told members of the education and youth scrutiny committee: “We are assured that all payments were legitimate and there’s no suggestion being made of any improper use, other than the fact that this seems to indicate a lack of control over the use of cards.

“I know that an explanation has been provided, and it says that this would not be classed as a policy breach, because it is delegated to schools in terms of how they deal with this.

“However, if £138,000 of expenditure on a credit card is not a policy breach, then this suggests that the policy is perhaps inadequate.

“It also leaves the question unanswered as to why it took an internal audit to unearth this, and it was not picked up by the portfolio’s own control process.”

An internal audit report shows three corporate credit cards were used by staff at schools in Flintshire between the start of January 2020 and end of May 2023.

The sum of £138,769 was the highest amount spent by any cardholder across the council’s entire workforce, with the other bills coming to £16,488 and £15,629.

The outlay by the individual was reported to have started at one school, before they took the card with them when they moved to work at another school in the area.

Unaware

Auditors said the authority’s education department was unaware the cards were being used, despite application forms being completed, with oversight measures described as “unclear”.

Council guidance states that cards are intended for “valid expenditure only” on things like train tickets and hotel bookings but should not be used to avoid normal procurement procedures.

Discussing the largest bill, Claire Homard, Flintshire’s chief officer for education and youth, said: “This was a school-based credit card, and it was under the jurisdiction of the headteacher and the governing body in terms of the use and monitoring of that credit card.

“We identified that a number of schools had been given credit cards through the local authority via an application process.

“Having reviewed the situation, we have changed the policy to say that schools should not be using credit cards.

“We have investigated this matter, we have taken appropriate action, and we’ve made it very clear that that is not something that will be supported going forward.”