Urgent Repair Approval Under a Two-Tier Purchasing Policy
Northwind Facilities publishes a purchasing policy and a separate 'urgent repairs' memo. The policy states that any purchase above £2,000 requires a budget-holder signature and a facilities director signature; purchases of £2,000 or less require only the budget-holder. The memo, dated 3 March, says site managers may approve urgent repairs up to £2,000 without budget-holder sign-off, provided the repair is logged within 24 hours and the budget holder is notified the same working day. It adds that it 'does not alter the threshold for director approval.' On 10 March a site manager approves a £1,950 emergency chiller repair at 16:40. The job is logged at 17:10 on 11 March and the budget holder is emailed at 08:05 on 11 March. The finance officer rejects the invoice, saying the budget holder never signed. The site manager replies that the memo makes the signature unnecessary.
1. Decide whether the £1,950 repair was properly approved, and identify each policy or memo condition that affects the answer.
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The approval fails, but not for the reason finance gives.
- Director signature: not required. The policy requires it only for purchases above £2,000; £1,950 is at or below the threshold, and the memo expressly leaves the director threshold unchanged.
- Budget-holder signature: the memo waives it for urgent repairs up to £2,000, so the missing signature is not by itself fatal.
- Conditions of the waiver: the repair had to be logged within 24 hours and the budget holder notified the same working day. Approval was 10 March at 16:40; logging at 17:10 on 11 March is about 24.5 hours later, outside 24 hours, and the 08:05 email on 11 March is not the same working day.
Because the waiver's conditions are cumulative and at least one is breached, the site manager's approval does not satisfy the memo. The invoice should be queried under the urgent-repair route, not rejected for lack of a budget-holder signature.
2. The finance officer says 'no budget-holder signature means no approval'; the site manager says 'the memo removes the need for a signature'. Which reading is better supported, and what is the practical risk in each?
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Both statements are partly right, and the distinction matters.
The finance officer's rule is out of date. The 3 March memo expressly allows a site manager to approve urgent repairs up to £2,000 without budget-holder sign-off. If that were the only issue, the approval would stand.
The site manager's reading is too broad. The waiver is conditional: logged within 24 hours, and notified the same working day. Those are not optional extras; they are the controls that replace the signature. On the facts, the log is about 24.5 hours late and the notification is the next morning, so the waiver does not attach.
Practical risk: accepting the site manager's view would let urgent spend escape both signature and logging controls; accepting finance's stated reason would discourage managers from using a route the company deliberately created. The correct ground for rejection is breach of the memo's conditions, not absence of a signature.
3. Rewrite the memo sentence 'This memo does not alter the threshold for director approval' so that it cannot be read either way, and explain the ambiguity you removed.
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Replacement wording: 'Purchases of £2,000 or less require only the budget-holder signature. Purchases above £2,000 require both the budget-holder signature and the facilities director signature. This memo does not change either requirement.'
The original is ambiguous because 'threshold for director approval' can mean '£2,000 and above' or 'above £2,000'. The purchasing policy uses the exclusive form: director approval is required for purchases above £2,000, so a purchase of exactly £2,000 is not caught. A reader in a hurry could treat £2,000 as the trigger for director approval and either over-escalate a £2,000 purchase or, worse, assume the urgent-repairs memo has lowered the director threshold. The rewrite states both bands explicitly and separates the inclusive 'or less' from the exclusive 'above', which removes the boundary dispute.