All schools, except the smallest, tend to devolve the spending of their money in such a way that a variety of teachers have the chance to buy things.

Generally speaking, for secondary schools, the list of people that might place an order with you includes:

Managers

• Headteacher.  While the head has a budget for purchasing management items he/she does not get involved in most other areas of work.
• Deputy Head/s.  Unlike the heads the deputy is often found taking an interest in school-wide initiatives such as adopting a new internet based personalised teaching system across the whole school.
• The Bursar is in charge of the school administration.  There may be a separate Finance Manager, or this may be the Bursar.
• Year Heads (Head of Year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and head of sixth form, or instead the head of Key Stage 3 and head of Key Stage 4.
• Head of Teaching and Learning
• Head of Basic Skills
• ICT Manager.  This is sometimes the head of IT (who teaches the subject) but can also be a separate person in charge of keeping the system running.

Other teachers with purchasing ability

• The heads of compulsory subjects: English, maths, IT, citizenship, religious studies, music, art, geography, history, science, modern foreign languages, sport.  Almost all schools have these heads of department, as they cover the national curriculum, plus religious studies which is an obligatory subject under the 1944 Education Act.
• The heads of other subjects: drama, physics, biology, chemistry.  Some schools will have a separate head of drama and/or the sciences, but not all - it depends on the enthusiasm with which these subjects are addressed.  Likewise some may have a head of boys sport and girls sport, or divide other subject areas into bits.
• The teachers in charge of school trips, behaviour & discipline, marketing, parent liaison.   Not every school will have one of these and these are not normally full time jobs, but they are positions that can be held, and money can be available for these areas.

In primary schools the system is similar, but because primary schools are generally smaller than secondary schools the number of managers is going to be smaller.  Only half of all primary schools have deputy heads, for example.

Primary schools have co-ordinators rather than subject heads - so you have the Maths Co-ordinator, English Co-ordinator etc.  However do remember that the list of 23,000 primary schools includes many schools made up of 85 children and 3 teachers, one of whom is the head.   In such schools, although the "co-ordinator" idea exists, in reality the money is all handled by the head.

Most schools work under regulations that state that they have to spend their money during the financial year.  Some money can be held over, but only a limited amount, unless it is for a special project.