School meal fraud fears as the payment system still ‘outdated’

MORE time will be needed to sort Anglesey’s school meal payments system, councillors have been told.

It comes a year after auditors found the system to be so lax the council couldn’t be certain it wasn’t being defrauded.

A report presented in December 2018 could only offer “limited assurance” on the island council’s school income collection arrangements after visits to three separate schools flagged up concerns.

Auditors found some schools were still operating a manual paper system while others depended on mobile payments via the School Comms app, leading to accounting inconsistencies and a lack of corporate monitoring.

But a year on, a follow-up inspection found only some improvements have been made, with auditors again only able to offer “limited assurance” that the system in place was secure.

The policies and procedures were also described as “outdated” with the monitoring of debt varying between the island’s 43 primary schools.

A report presented to the authority’s audit committee on Tuesday, said “although much work has been undertaken” and “progress made,” in many cases it has been “insufficient to fully address the issue/risk.”

It went on to add: “Timescales originally proposed for some of the management actions were unrealistic, considering the number of departments and work involved.

“This, coupled with staffing issues across a number of departments, has meant a number of these actions are still outstanding.

“In addition, the new Primary Senior Manager post will need to approve the new process, and the Learning Service is yet to appoint to this post.”

Addressing the meeting the director of education, Howard Hughes, said he hoped auditors would find more secure arrangements in place when they next visit the department.

He added: “In the strategic forums we are making sure now that schools understand the consequences of not following them (the procedures) and getting people to buy in.

“From talking to colleagues I feel we are now in a better position than we were, we’re not in a perfect position but are in a much stronger position.

“We are working with and upskilling headteachers so that they can make strategic decisions on how to implement that in their own schools.”