A DAMNING report has exposed abuses and massive failings in the handling of a school's finances amounting to the misuse of £100,000s.
The litany of criticisms levelled at Cardinal Wiseman RC School while under the stewardship of Headteacher Paul Patrick led to Ealing Council, which carried out the audit, to give a verdict of no confidence in the school's financial management, the worst rating possible.
Released on Friday, the report was commissioned by the school's governors after Mr Patrick was cleared of fraud charges by police in August.
He was arrested in April at his home in Southgate and remained suspended until his resignation on January 21.
Many credit him with turning the school around in his 12 years as head. Friends say he decided to go because of health reasons.
Some of the worst criticisms of his leadership centre on the school's link to Cuba which dates back to 2003 and for which no business case was ever submitted.
Between October 2005 and February 2009 13 visits were made to the Caribbean country involving 100 staff, 136 students and 38 non-staff. The school was reimbursed for only eight visits made by non-staff and did not verify any criminal record checks for them.
In a sample of ten invoices for the trips, four had not been authorised for payment. They did not list the names of all passengers and listed one person who did not visit Cuba, yet the school paid £742 for flights and accommodation.
Between April 2007 and March 2009 more than £121,400 was paid out to cover the costs of the trips, including hotel and travel costs.
The report says Paul Patrick claimed expenses, many without receipts, for items such as mobile phone bills, meals, taxi fares and managed to rack up more than £176,460 worth between April 2007 and March 2009.
The former headteacher also claimed £48,880 on top of his salary for work done for the National College for School Leadership in the same period, even though the money technically belonged to the school and payments were not authorised by governors.
And under Mr Patrick's watch computer equipment was bought from companies run by the school's data manager without any attempt to search for cheaper quotes.
And £52,000 was paid to the data manager after he left the school in March for consultancy work yet to be carried out.
A range of urgent measures have been put forward by the auditors and Chair of Governors Maggie Pound said many of these have already been put in place.
She is confident everything will be finished by the auditors follow-up visit in April and added: "Acting headteacher Michael Kiely and the Senior Leadership Team have coped extremely well, they are also supported by extraordinarily dedicated staff who will continue to ensure our students excel."
