Published on 03 March 2025
The Home Office has refused to say if it has sought clarification about offshore payments made by Clearsprings, a key asylum accommodation provider. Image: Guy Corbishley / Alamy
Mystery surrounds UAE-based firm reportedly paid millions of pounds for 'consultancy services'
Reports Mark Wilding and Harriet Clugston for Liberty Investigates, and Indra Warnes for openDemocracy.
MPs have demanded answers over millions of pounds in offshore transactions made by one of the country’s largest providers of asylum accommodation.
The parent company of Clearsprings Ready Homes has reported paying over £17 million in “consultancy fees” to Bespoke Strategy Solutions (BSS), a United Arab Emirates-based consultancy firm that Clearsprings says it owned at least in part by its founder Graham King.
But the only firm with that name on the UAE corporate register told Liberty Investigates and openDemocracy that it did not receive the payments and has no link to King or Clearsprings, which holds Home Office contracts estimated to be worth several billion pounds.
UAE corporate records also show this BSS was founded years after Clearsprings said it made its first payment to the firm in 2018/19.
BSS’s founder, Swati Naidu, said: “Bespoke Strategy Solutions was set up in 2022 here in Dubai and I am the sole shareholder, director, manager, with no connections to whoever this Graham King is.”
No other BSS appears on the corporate registry, and the UAE’s Ministry of Economy states that company names “must be unique and not be similar to the name of any other registered company”.
17.1 million Payments made by Clearsprings to Bespoke Strategy Solutions
Clearsprings (Management) Limited makes most of its £1.8bn turnover from just two Home Office contracts held by its subsidiary Clearsprings Ready Homes, and recently reported record annual profits of £90m.
We have repeatedly asked it to clarify the ownership of BSS, which it reports sending payments to in its annual financial accounts, and explain why the firm cannot be found on the public UAE register, but have had no response.
The Home Office has also declined to say whether it sought clarification about the payments after tax experts first raised concerns in July, following an investigation by Liberty Investigates shortly after the new government entered office. .
Clearsprings has since reported a further £1.2m in payments to BSS in its latest accounts for the year ending January 2024, bringing the total paid since 2018/19 to £17.1m. The latest accounts were the first to confirm that BSS is incorporated in the UAE. The transactions are described as “administrative expenses in respect of consultancy services”.
Any payments to Bespoke Strategy Solutions may reduce Clearsprings’ UK tax burden by lowering its pre-tax profits. The UAE also offers lower corporate taxes than the UK. There is no suggestion of any illegality.
Politicians and tax experts have urged the government to launch an investigation into the payments.
Labour MP Kate Osamor said: “Clearsprings is funnelling money offshore in an extremely opaque way. I believe that HMRC should carry out a thorough investigation.”
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Labour MP who serves on the Home Affairs Committee, said she hoped to obtain answers about Clearsprings’ financial arrangements as part of the committee’s ongoing inquiry into asylum accommodation. “This is a huge amount of public money and it’s clear that something has gone wrong,” she said. “We urgently need an investigation.
Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said: “It must be a concern that such large payments were made by a company receiving public funds to a consultancy that has not yet been shown even to exist.”
This was echoed by Claire Aston, director at TaxWatch, who added: “There desperately needs to be an investigation before any further public money is paid out to Clearsprings.”
Liberty Investigates and OpenDemocracy asked Clearsprings about Naidu’s comments, and to clarify what services were provided by BSS, but did not hear back. Clearsprings’ auditor, which is responsible for compiling its annual accounts, also did not respond to enquiries.
Other Labour MPs joined the calls for a government probe into the matter. Phil Brickell, a member of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, said: “I hope that any irregularities will be investigated and clarified urgently.”
Clearsprings has two Home Office contracts to run asylum accommodation across the south of England and Wales, which were awarded in 2019 by the Conservative government and run until 2029. Originally estimated to be worth £1bn over 10 years, the cost to the government spiralled as the asylum backlog built up and asylum seekers had to be put up in expensive hotels — with Clearsprings often acting as a middleman.
Clearsprings’ profits have risen more than 600-fold since 2019. Meanwhile, Graham King has become one of Britain’s richest men, with a reported wealth of more than £750m.
The company has faced sustained criticism over reports of poor standards at its accommodation and the behaviour of its staff.
Osamor added: “Clearsprings has already been shown to profit off the poor living conditions and misery of people who have fled war and persecution, and it is unacceptable it continues to receive such large government contracts for asylum accommodation.
This article was published in partnership with openDemocracy.