Updated 6pm. Adds reference to €3 million given to former chair's company

Former San Andrea School assistant head Trevor Templeman has welcomed the findings of an independent inquiry into his series of claims.

He insisted that it confirmed what he had been saying from the outset and that he too was the victim of the school's "culture of bullying".

He also welcomed the findings by Big Four audit firm PWC into his claims of financial mismanagement.

The school on Wednesday said that the inquiry concluded that several claims made by Templeman were unsubstantiated but singled out school top management for failing to take disciplinary action in numerous situations.

One of the key allegations made by Templeman was that the school's former chair Kevin Spiteri had taken €200,000 from school funds and that his company, KJM Enterprises, had made €3 million.

The judge leading the inquiry was not looking into the alleged financial irregularities, which are being dealt with by PWC in a report that has also not been published by the board. 

However, the statement from the school appears to confirm that Spiteri's business received €3 million from the school. He "testified that this sum had been made over eight years and included the Multipurpose Hall, employees wages, materials used and that payment was always made against invoices" it said.

Earlier this week, the school had said that the money Templeman claimed was siphoned out of the school was actually used to build the multipurpose hall and on extensive refurbishment.

In a statement reacting to both reports, Templeman said the report by retired judge David Scicluna confirmed what he had been saying from the outset that the school and its management “lead with a culture of bullying”, the same culture he had been subjected to and which left him no option but to resign.

His lawyers, David Bonello and Chris Said said they had filed a case before the employment tribunal over their client’s “constructive dismissal”. The case is still pending.

They pointed out that, in line with the terms and conditions imposed by the school when it commissioned its independent inquiry, the judge’s investigation did not delve into Templeman’s allegations of financial mismanagement but into the former assistant head and his actions

“In fact, in the engagement letter to the judge the school expressly prohibited the judge from investigating financial impropriety,” the lawyers said as they quoted the judge’s report as saying: “Excluded from the scope of this inquiry are allegations of financial impropriety.”

“It is interesting why the school had specifically excluded the financial impropriety when the matter which led to this report was the information put forward by our client. Our client notes that before informing the parents, who willingly asked for this information, he had gone through all the normal school channels but was met with blank faces and the bullying increased,” the lawyers wrote.

They added that had Templeman not alerted the parents about the situation, no investigation would have been carried out and none of the reports, conclusions and recommendations put forward by the judge and PWC would have seen the light of day.

In his statement, Templeman noted that the reports had not been fully published and that the school had chosen to leak selected parts of the conclusions.

Although a probe into financial impropriety had been excluded from the investigation, the judge still made a recommendation on the school finances which were managed by Stefania Bartolo and Kevin Spiteri:

“All major donations received should be accurately and immediately registered and the relative receipts issued. Donors must be informed of the manner in which their donation has been used.”

The judge also recommended that “Receipts should be issued for donations for school activities held for charitable purposes, the beneficiary charity announced and the amount collected announced.”

Templeman also quoted the judge as recommending in his report that “Apart from a yearly budget the school should even move to prepare a draft budget for three to five years in the future… Ensure availability and proper keeping of guarantee documents associated with equipment purchased.”

He said Judge Scicluna also made recommendations regarding the general administration and appointment of staff: “The appointment of staff through calls for applications… Ensuring that staff selected have the proper qualifications… Transparency in the marking system used for the appointment of staff enabling unsuccessful candidates to know the reasons for not being selected.”

“Our client welcomes the ‘summary’ of the report of the firm PWC which confirms the claims that he had originally put forward and which led to these reports, that the ex-chairperson of the school board, Kevin Spiteri through his company KJM Enterprises Limited, received no less than €3.16 million from the school. The same report also confirms that more than €100,000 had been passed on to Kevin Spiteri’s company without any trace or invoices,” the lawyers wrote.

The summary of the PWC report also confirmed that funds had been transferred from the San Andrea school bank account to Spiteri’s company bank account after school hours, in the middle of the night and during the weekends.

“Our client notes that it was Kevin Spiteri himself as the chairperson of the school board who had access to transfer such funds to his own company. Apart from this being a blatant conflict of interest, this surely merits further investigation,” they said, adding that the accounts for 2021 and 2022 “should give a clearer picture of further transfers between the school and Kevin Spiteri’s company.”