Children’s homes firm collapses owing £2.2m as creditors get nothing

10 September 2026 , 12:31

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Creditors owed millions of pounds by a company that ran illegal children’s homes have been told they won’t see a penny of their money.

Manchester-based Great Minds Together (GMT) operated a series of children’s homes without Ofsted registration – a criminal offence – before it went bust last year.

Administrators have since received 13 claims from unsecured creditors totalling £2.2m but, according to a newly published report, none of that money is expected to be repaid.

GMT also owes £716,000 to HMRC, which takes precedence over the unsecured creditors. However, the taxpayer is expected to receive a paltry £21,000 – about 3p in the pound.

The situation will be all the more galling for those left out of pocket because GMT branding continues to be associated with Thriving Futures (GMT) Ltd, a new company owned by the same person, which also provides publicly funded care to vulnerable people.

Under its two guises, GMT received at least £12m across a three-year period, almost all of which was for operating unregistered children’s homes for local authorities including Manchester and Tameside.

GMT’s most recent published accounts show directors received dividends totalling more than £300,000 in 2023. During that year, the directors were owner and CEO Emma Mander, her husband Paul Mander, and her cousin Margaret Walls.

Emma Mander declined to comment for this article, but previously told us the 2023 dividends figure was cumulative from prior years and that she had been advised by her accountants that directors should receive dividends rather than salaries.

Mander has also previously said the children who were placed with GMT made significant progress, and she defended not registering with Ofsted, claiming that its “rigid regulatory framework” does not meet the needs of “these complex young people”. She added that unregistered homes still receive weekly visits from the local authority.

Mander disputed that her companies operate illegal homes because all placements are arranged by a local council acting according to its legal responsibilities or, in some cases, a judge. However, a supreme court ruling from 2021 makes clear that it is a criminal offence to run an unregistered home, even if a judge has authorised its use.

As well as trying to recoup money for creditors, administrators from Quantuma Advisory have conducted a review of the circumstances leading to GMT’s collapse. Companies House records concluded that there was need for further investigation “into the conduct of directors”. This took place and submissions were made to the Insolvency Service. Quantuma Advisory’s investigations remain ongoing.

According to an earlier report, published in February, Emma and Paul Mander have not fully cooperated with the administrators’ investigations. Neither completed the questionnaire they had been sent or a document detailing the company’s assets and liabilities. We understand this allegation is disputed. Paul Mander was contacted for comment but had not responded at the time of publication.

Walls, who has answered the administrators’ questions, stepped down as a director in September 2023. She declined to comment when approached about this story.

For the last year we’ve been investigating the widespread use of illegal children’s homes by local authorities across the UK. In July, Ofsted announced a crackdown, partly prompted by our reporting that revealed a 15-year-old girl had been abused by two former soldiers in an unregistered home in Durham.

GMT operated at least four illegal children’s homes before it went out of business. In May 2024, the company was described by a high court judge to be providing “wholly inadequate” care to a 10-year-old boy in an illegal home on the Isle of Wight. The placement cost the council £29,000 per week.

The company also ran a home in Oldham, Greater Manchester, where a child with social and emotional difficulties had been placed by Tameside council. This home was registered with Ofsted but an inspection in July 2025 found it to be in a state of disrepair: there was no bed, little furniture and one person providing care had not been vetted to work with children.

Responding to our story at the time, GMT told us Ofsted’s findings had been taken out of context and that the child had chosen to sleep without a bed due to their specific needs. However, Ofsted suspended the company’s registration. Within a fortnight, the company went into administration before being immediately sold to Thriving Futures.

A few months later Mander was shortlisted for the Entrepreneur of Excellence Award at the National Diversity Awards. The listing was accompanied by a glowing description of GMT – which it said had grown from a living room business into a “multi-million-pound organisation” – even though the company had just gone bust and left behind a string of unpaid creditors.

GMT’s website lists “partners” including NHS England and the National Lottery Community Fund.

According to GMT’s administrators, the company may be owed £552,000 by an unnamed local authority. A law firm is attempting to recover the money. “This claim remains contested and the recoverability remains uncertain,” the report said.

A community interest company with the same name, also owned by Mander, was placed into compulsory liquidation in June 2025 following a winding up petition by HMRC.

In November last year, Thriving Futures registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide “treatment of disease, disorder or injury” for children and adults with learning difficulties and mental health conditions. The CQC register notes that the company is “also known as Great Minds Together”.