A local Manchester charity is facing some heat for overpayments being made to one of its chairmen.
Moss Side and Hulme Community Development Trust claimed it helped nearly 400 people according to its accounts at a cost of £60,000 annually.
Its ITC Learning Centre however has been closed since 2015.
To boot trustees had no records of any charitable work.
One of the companies chairmen Hartley Hanley said the trust didn’t get any public funds.
The charity told an inquiry that it trained and empowered unemployed people and assisted those affected by the Windrush scandal.
There were unauthorised payments of £56,000 made to Hanley for acting as the CEO of the charity according to the commissions report.
According to the BBC, accounts show Hanley got paid £17,500 in 2013, £18,500 in 2014, and £20,000 in 2015.
The commission told Mike Bisson last year he didn’t have the power to make those payments back in 2013.
In an interview in 2018 Bisson said that “the centre may have been closed since 2015”.
However in an interview last year Hanley said that “the centre had not been used since 2015 or 2016”.
Trustees had failed to file all of the charity’s annual accounts on time since August 2014 according to the report.
The report states that is a criminal offence.
Hanley declined to comment and Bisson was unavailable for comment. (JSL)
