Perhaps we're bad people but we do find this amusing

The Observer tells us that Academy heads, or rather the heads of chains of Academies, are charging expenses to the taxpayer:

The leaders of academy schools are spending taxpayers’ money on luxury hotels, top-end restaurants, first-class travel, private health care and executive cars, a joint investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Observer can reveal.

Expense claims released under the Freedom of Information Act lay bare for the first time what critics claim is an extraordinary extravagance by some academy chain chief executives and principals, at a time when schools are struggling financially.

Reading through the list of claims we wouldn't say that all of them sound entirely appropriate. But "credit card bill for expensive meal" and "entertainment bill for big meeting with staff" do sound rather different, don't they? But they also seem modest compared to our memories of certain civil service awaydays and the like. Perhaps someone would like to do a proper comparison? 

The amusement starts here: 

Sir Daniel Moynihan, the chief executive of the high-performing Harris Federation, earns £395,000 a year.

Bloke who runs high performing organisation gets paid a lot. We thought that was rather the point to be honest. Incentives do, after all, matter. 

But of course there must be someone to provide a rent-a-quote to tell us all how terrible this claiming of expenses is:

However, asked to respond to the revelations, Margaret Hodge, the former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said that the checks and balances in the academy system were not robust enough

Ah, yes, Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge:

New figures have revealed the two MPs representing Barking and Dagenham were among the biggest spenders in London over the last Parliament – costing the taxpayer £1.4million in expenses.
...
Our investigation, looking at thousands of claims over the last five years, has shown Labour MP for Barking, Margaret Hodge, had the 10th highest expenses bill in the capital at £708,492.

As Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge, points out that was all spent in the pursuit of her duties as an MP. Including, no doubt, travel and entertainment expenses and so on as well as staff wages.

Just a little amuse gueule before a Sunday breakfast.