The mother of a disgraced children’s home operator is attempting to reopen a home shut down by inspectors last year for “serious and widespread failures”, using a new company with a different name.
Ofsted is deciding whether to allow the home in Bolton to reopen after the local council, which cannot legally block the move, raised concerns with the inspectorate.
Bolton’s director of children’s services said the case raised “deep concerns” about the residential care sector.
Alison McGuinness is the mother of Robert McGuinness, a Lamborghini-driving onetime pub landlord who was exposed by the Guardian last year for spending thousands of pounds intended for educating marginalised children on drinking, foreign trips and his pub business.
Together with Robert’s father, Francis, the McGuinnesses ran Achieve Care Homes. They operated a home in Bolton which Ofsted closed in January last year after inspectors found that very inexperienced staff failed to meet children’s basic care needs.
Staff had not entered one bedroom for more than four months despite evidence of flies and “a pungent smell” that spread throughout the home, Ofsted inspectors discovered.
Alison McGuinness has started a new company called Strive Services, which has applied to reopen the Bolton home under a different name. According to the Strive website, Moses Gate House is awaiting Ofsted registration and will be “a therapeutic children’s residential home providing placements for up to two children aged 8-18yrs”.
Bolton council has written to Ofsted about Strive’s McGuinness connection, saying it will not be placing children there.
Ofsted said it could not comment on individual cases, but that all applications for registration are subject to “a rigorous assessment of suitability, including full checks of applicants’ background, experience and knowledge” and a visit from inspectors.
Kate O’Brien, the director of care and operations at Strive Services, said: “Strive is liaising transparently with Bolton council in relation to the process they normally follow when a company wishes to provide services of this type. Strive is working with Bolton council and Ofsted to achieve a positive outcome for all concerned.”
She declined to answer a series of questions, including whether Alison McGuinness had started a new company so that Ofsted would not realise that some of the same people were involved in trying to reopen the Bolton home. McGuinness did not provide any comments of her own.
As well as running Achieve Care Homes, Robert McGuinness and his father also ran a community interest company (CIC) called Achieve Training Centre, which provided vocational training to children excluded from mainstream schools.
A Guardian investigation found that Bolton and Bury local authorities paid £1.5m to the CIC between 2015 and 2021.
Profits from the CIC should have benefited the community, but instead Robert McGuinness, a plasterer turned publican, lent his bar business £100,000 from the company. He also spent thousands from the CIC bank account on his social life and trips to Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Thailand.
Although Robert McGuinness is not listed as a director of Strive, when the Guardian contacted the company for a comment, his lawyer replied. The lawyer said Robert McGuinness had paid back the money in full and that “at its highest, Achieve helped cashflow” of the pub business.
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Bernie Brown, the director of children’s services at Bolton council, said the case showed why the process for registering children’s homes needed to be more joined up.
“The current system involves Ofsted, social services and local planning authorities at various stages, but with limited coordination between the different agencies,” she said: “A national review is required to enable regulators, planners and carers to work more closely together in deciding who should be allowed to register homes, where they should be, and which children should be placed there.”
She said there were many excellent children’s homes, run by both private companies and local authorities. But she considers the current regulatory landscape problematic and wants the law changed to close a “loophole” in planning laws that allows providers to apply for change of use and open a home with limited experience.
“This is deeply concerning, especially while quality placements remain so scarce,” she said.
Though Bolton council says it will not place children with Strive, neighbouring Bury council said it was already working with the company and had so far paid the firm around £17,000 for the care of one young person. While it awaits Ofsted registration for Moses Gate House, Strive is already operating Astley Brook House, supported accommodation for 16-18-year-olds in Bolton, which does not require Ofsted registration.
After the Guardian exposed Robert McGuinness last year, Bury said it would stop sending children to Achieve.
“We were unaware of the link between the directors of this company and those of Achieve. Our commissioning team has not had any direct contact with Alison McGuinness, and we have had no concerns about the placement.
“We will now look further into this matter and make a decision on what is best for the young person concerned,” a council spokesperson said.