Bright Tribe pays £680,000 in related-party transactions
A controversial multi-academy trust has paid more than £680,000 to firms owned or controlled by a board member who runs its sponsor company.
Bright Tribe Trust, which runs 10 schools in the North West and South East, was last year investigated by the Education Skills and Funding Agency over “related party transactions” made by the trust to companies run by Michael Dwan, a venture capitalist.
Mr Dwan is the founding trustee of Helping Hands Trust – which set up the MAT with one other company – and sits as its representative on the Bright Tribe Trust board.
He is also a director of three other businesses that have been paid a total of £681,000 from Bright Tribe in the year until 31 August 2017 – down from £3.9 million the previous year.
The latest accounts filed by Bright Tribe, for 2016-17, state that purchases were made at “cost or less” from the companies.
The £681,000, the accounts state, “can be analysed as £342k cost of staff TUPE’d from the trust/other recharges, £339,000 secondments the trust and nil services provided to the trust”.
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