It has (finally) hit the local news today that the head of one of the local primary schools has been arrested and is being charged with 2 counts of theft from the workplace.  The newspapers cite the sum of £53,000 having been stolen/spent fraudulently. 

 How does a headteacher manage to spend such a large amount of the school monies on personal affairs and not get caught out.  (He was only arrested after confessing to the governers I believe.) 

I believe you are right.  My friend has children in that school and she told me that the juniors were called into a special assembly today and told that their Headteacher wasn't well and as a result had made some wrong decisions, that it was in the papers and that he was unlikely to be coming back to school.

No bursars in schools that size around here (400 pupils) just the Headteacher and the dept head and secretary with their names on a document at the bank authorising them to sign cheques for school.  Annual audits too. 

Is this the case?

http://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/109836/primary-school-headteacher-charged-with-theft.aspx

transilvanian:

Governors check the books

No they don't! Governors aren't auditors. That's what the LA does.

transilvanian:

Governors would have noticed surely by seeing regular budget monitor statements. That is their duty

There's no reason to assume the fraud would have been apparent in budget monitoring statements. As we know nothing about how the fraud was carried out nor over how many years it's impossible to say whether the fraud should or could have been noticed by the governors, nor to know whether the governors had put proper financial controls in place in compliance with LA procedures. Maybe they had but the head was a determined fraudster who found a way round them. Yes governors are responsible for the overall financial management of the school, as they are for everything else, but are not expected to personally detect fraud nor to check every individual transaction. Governors are entitled to assume the head is honest unless there is reason to think otherwise. There's clearly a failure in the financial controls but you're quick to blame the governors transilvanian without knowing any of the facts.

transilvanian:

Heads only have a remit to spend up to a very minimal amount

Depends what you mean by ‘minimal', but a fraudulent head's legitimate spending authority is irrelevant; the nature of fraud is that a fraudster exceeds their remit but covers it up!

I have read about these cases and even after 15 years in the job cannot see how someone thinks they can get away with this sort of action.

Every cheque over a fairly low limit has to be signed by 2 staff at my school. Our accounting is done by an officer employed by the LA who comes in more than monthly to undertake this work. I have to report any expenditure over £2k to my finance committee, who would see from their scruting if I had not done so.

Do other schools not have these checks and balances in place to protect the school and staff?

The Estyn report for that LA came out today

Financial services and support for schools didn't come out very well