Bangor: Jailed paedophile headteacher flouted rules – union

The school, which is one of the largest secondary schools in north Wales, is said by the union to have had a debt of almost £500,000 earlier this year.

This is compared with data from March 2021 showing it had almost £1million in reserve mainly because of grants due to the pandemic.

Ten months before his arrest, Foden spoke to BBC Wales about school budgets after lockdown.

The new school governing body said there were “lessons to be learned”, and that they are now following Gwynedd council’s guidance when recruiting.

Acknowledging the financial pressures faced by many schools in Wales, Dilwyn Griffiths said that Ysgol Friars’ debt accumulated because of “more spending on staff than there should have been” and that it was clear that “no-one was keeping track of it”.

The governing body at the school had started a process of compulsory redundancies by the end of the last financial year (April 2024) due to the establishment’s financial situation.

The consultation process ended without the school having to make any redundancies because 17 staff members left on a voluntarily basis.

Mr Griffiths questioned how the appointments during Foden’s time as headteacher had not come to the attention of the local authority, who were responsible for issuing the contracts.

He said this undermined public confidence and “the public would like to know that their money is being spent appropriately”.