The Charity Commission has raised concerns about the running of an education charity that hasn’t filed accounts in five years.

The Birmingham Education Trust, which funds and runs the Al Huda Girls School in Birmingham, is being investigated by the charity regulator over its management, governance and finances.

The regulator is also concerned that it only has two trustees, listed with the regulator as Asif Jawaid and Mrs S Y Jawaid Samina Jawaid.

The charity, which registered in 1997, was already subject to a compliance case that launched in March 2019 over a “repeated failure to comply with its statutory duty to file accounts and annual returns.

The regulator added: “The case then identified wider concerns, including that the charity was operating in breach of its governing document in having only two trustees who were husband and wife. This also raised concerns about potential unmanaged conflicts of interest.

“The Commission issued the trustees with an action plan to address and rectify the concerns, but the trustees have failed to demonstrate progress. The case has therefore been escalated to a statutory inquiry, which opened on 21 July 2020.”

According to Charity Commission records the charity, has failed to submit accounts for the last five years. Its accounts for the year ending August 2015 are now 1502 days overdue.

The Charity Commission inquiry into the charity will look at whether it is operating exclusively for charitable purposes and whether its financial controls are adequate.

It will also look at whether the two trustees have complied with their legal duties around administration, governance and management of the charity. Potential conflicts of interests will also be looked at.

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