Who Could Approve?

Fiona's next email arrived while Emma was reading her notes about manual approval. The records team had finally opened the sheet marked 'Delegated authority — September 2011'. Emma hoped it would give her the name of a person who had approved payments.

Instead, Fiona sent a description. The sheet listed three job roles: scheme administrator, finance manager and trust chair. It explained which role could ask for an exception and which role could authorise one. It did not contain a list of payments.

'Are there names?' Emma asked.

'There are initials beside two roles,' Fiona replied. 'The copy is faint. We can't read them with confidence, and we don't know whether they were names or an internal checking mark.'

Emma wrote down exactly what Fiona had said. She had no reason to put a person's name beside any payment.

Sarah looked at the description. 'But Malcolm Vale chaired the trust. Doesn't that mean he approved the exceptions?'

'No,' Emma answered. 'A chair might have authority under a rule without using it in a particular case. We need an actual approval record.'

Fiona had found one more detail. The sheet said that an exception above a specified limit should be referred to the trust chair. Fiona could not yet read the amount on the old copy. Emma did not know whether any of the 2011 exceptions had reached that limit.

They returned to Helen Ward's family letter. The student had been selected for travel support, but Helen had not confirmed a transfer and did not want to share bank details. Nothing connected the family to the manual-approval records.

Emma phoned Fiona again. 'Could you ask for a clearer copy of the limit and a count of entries that needed approval? No student names.'

'I can ask,' Fiona said. 'But we must check the records before saying there is a count.'

By evening Sarah had prepared a page for their investigation file. It had four headings: request, authorisation, transfer and receipt. They could explain the first two as rules. They could not fill the last two with facts about a particular student.

Then Fiona sent a final note. The records team had discovered a reference to a separate authorisation register. They had not located the register itself.

Emma stared at the message. The sheet told her who could approve. The missing register might tell her who did.

That was the question she would take into the next day.