A Copenhagen pre-school sent its head and teachers on luxury holidays abroad on taxpayer money, including stays at a five-star luxury hotel in Berlin, skiing holidays in Norway and Austria and seminars at seaside hotels in Denmark, according to disclosures today.

“Conditions for children at the institution have been so bad that in the past four years my daughter has seen more than 100 different teachers at the pre-school. The children don’t even know their teachers’ names any more. In fact they don’t even care, they simply go to the oldest child when they need care,” says Lisbeth Dixen, one of the parents.

The institution, which houses 120 crèche and kindergarden children, has now been ordered to save DKK 1.4 million as a result of overspending.

In April 2008, the former head of the institution took six employees on two professional ‘strategy days’ to Berlin where they stayed at the five-star Concorde Hotel. Receipts that Politiken has obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the leader’s room cost DKK 11,000 per night while rooms for employees cost DKK 7,400 per night.

DOCUMENTATION: This is the Concorde Hotel (external link)

A month previously, in March 2008, personnel took a skiing holiday to Norway for at least DKK 65,000 while in April 2007, a skiing holiday went to Austria.

Unacceptable
“If we had known about the travels we would of course have taken action. This was an unacceptable overspend so we did take action as soon as we could. When we saw the deficit in the accounts we acted immediately and called for all receipts. Finally we had to collect them ourselves as we didn’t get all of them,” says Copenhagen Council Children and Youth Administration District Manager Jan Lange.

The head in question left the school in January, three months after the institution was put under central administration due to the travel and other overspends, although the pre-school Board was never informed of the DKK 1.4 million deficit, or told why the head had left the school.