Penny-pinching jobsworths like Neil Foden exist in businesses and schools everywhere.
They are the kind of people for whom numbers, and not humanity, remain the bottom line.
Foden is the headteacher who ordered the cook at his school in Gwynedd, North Wales, not to feed kids if their meal accounts are even 2p in arrears.
“The school has been instructed not to give food to any child from November 22 if their debt has not been cleared, or, in the future, to children whose accounts do not have enough money to pay for lunch,” read a letter to parents.
Their debt? They are children, for goodness’ sake. Debt shouldn’t be a word they even know in a school context.
In any case, how on earth can you be a teacher and not believe kids have a basic right to eat?
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With suggestions that some staff were storing food in their classrooms for hungry kids, it appears not all of Foden’s colleagues were on board.
Before his school’s board u-turn and apology this afternoon, Foden had sought to defend his Dickensian approach, maintaining he’d taken action because “a handful of pupils had run up debts totalling more than £1,800”. “We’re not talking about cracking down excessively harshly on a handful of parents who’ve run up debts of a fiver or so,” he said.
Trouble is, it didn’t take long for reporters to find one parent who’d been contacted by the local authority after being overdrawn to the tune of just 36p. Doubtless there’ll be others.
Why not just send a letter out to families to distinguish between those dragging their heels and those who really are on hard times?
Why not then point those in need towards the ways to apply for emergency school meals in Wales?
You’d like to think Foden is more embarrassed by his ruthless words in the cold light of day than the ferocious social media backlash towards his leaked letter.
He should certainly be ashamed that a blogger, Simon Harris of the Men Behaving Dadly podcast, even offered to pay the £1,800 – even though he doesn’t have a child there.
Either way, maybe it is Foden who qualifies for an early visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.
