Schools Spent over £3 million on Council Payment Cards in 9 months ranging from Amazon to Pubs

Schools across Westmorland and Furness spent over nine months between April 2024 and December 2024 £3,347,149.04 on council provided corporate cards among the spending £130,664.08 was spent by schools with Amazon including multiple schools with monthly Amazon prime subscriptions.

Schools across the district used the cards to pay for a wide variety of items from electricity and gas bills to McDonalds and Dominos Pizza. Some of the cards provided to schools by the council have also been used to pay for a few visits to local pubs and restaurants. With some expenditure lines listed as “DISCO,NIGHTCLUB,TAVERN-ALCOHOLIC DRINKS”

Westmorland and Furness council has 165 cards issued to schools in the council area.

The Council has said that in the first few months of the new council it did allow the use of card payments for critical services and invoices whilst the technical issues the council faced with the new shared system approach and system changes were finalised.

Two years on from the new council taking over council card spending appears to show schools are continuing to use the cards to pay for a wide range of items including invoices as well as pizza and pub visits.

Westmorland and Furness council started in 2024 to publish the data after the council was challenged for failure to publish spending reports under the local government transparency code. The code requires councils to publish data covering the councils general trade payments, council credit cards and cards issued to schools.

The above data is from published Westmorland and Furness Council School Procurement Card Spending between April 2024 and December 2024. 

Schools are listed in the above table in alphabetical order with any identified individuals names removed from payment references were these are not organisations and that we could identify as individuals names that payments were made by schools.