Dundee crime: Primary school worker jailed for 16 months after stealing £28,000 from school funds

A Dundee primary school worker who embezzled thousands of pounds from school funds has been jailed.

Administrative officer Jane Duncan, 54, stole around £28,000 of funds from Mill O’Mains Primary which were earmarked to help pupils from impoverished backgrounds.

The offences happened between 2016 and 2019 and Duncan, from Dundee, used the embezzled funds to “finance her own lifestyle”.

Duncan, who had worked at the school for 16 years, was issued with a government procurement card which authorised her to make purchases solely for school purposes.

Instead, she used it used to spend £14,145.80 on items including PlayStation games, supermarket goods, beauty products, shoes, home items and pet goods. The money she stole had been set aside for school trips funded by parents and guardians.

Duncan appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court.

Duncan was jailed for 16 months at Dundee Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to a charge of embezzlement following a prosecution by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

She oversaw the day-to-day running of the school office and had sole responsibility for banking incoming money received from various sources to help pay for trips.

Those unable to pay in full were assigned contributions from the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF), which is Scottish Government money earmarked to close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils.

Her offending came to light in 2019 when a Dundee City Council accountant initially identified that the school had no recorded finances relating to its breakfast club.

During a meeting with Duncan, it was discovered that no money had been deposited in the school safe since 2016 and that it should have contained money collected from primary seven children for a residential trip to Ardeonaig on Loch Tay.

The matter was reported to Dundee City Council’s corporate fraud department who carried out an investigation into the school’s finances and subsequently contacted police.

The investigation revealed that no cash had been banked for a 2018 trip to Dalguise Outdoor Centre in Perthshire.

Both trips were recorded in the ledger system as being covered entirely by PEF monies, meaning £13,939 taken from parents across the two trips was unaccounted for.

Primary school worker ‘helped herself to cash’ and ‘abused her position’

Helen Nisbet, Procurator Fiscal for Tayside, Central and Fife, said: “Jane Duncan used her position to help herself to cash paid by parents and then used public funds intended to support children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds to cover her tracks.

“She abused her position to use their money for her own benefit.

“Let the public be assured that we take such financial criminality extremely seriously.

“Those who commit this type of offending will be dealt with robustly by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.”

Make sure you keep up to date with news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here.

In total, it was estimated that Duncan had embezzled a total of £28,084.80 from the school funds.