A TROUBLED nursery company has been added to a nationwide investigation into “double defaulting” charities.

Brighton and Hove-based Little Oaks Nursery has been named among 14 charities added into a Charity Commission investigation into charities who have failed to file their accounts for two years in a row.

The firm, which has three nursery sites in Brighton and Hove, is 539 days late with one set of annual accounts and 174 days overdue with another.

The 16-month inquiry is looking at the bookkeeping practices of 88 charities worth a combined £68 million.

Ofsted told this paper that Little Oaks has now closed but the Charity Commission said they have not received formal notification.

A commission spokesman added that the firm still had legal obligations to file final accounts and for charity trustees to tell Government officials they had stopped operating - both of which Little Oaks had failed to do.

Charity Commission figures show that for 2012/13 the company made a loss of £36,000 on an income of £374,920.

It has suffered a number of blows since it last filed its accounts including a series of damning Ofsted inspections.

In January last year, its Islingword Road nursery in Brighton was criticised by inspectors for failing to make adequate improvements following a rating of inadequate issued in November 2014.

Ofsted officials said the nursery team had failed to take “prompt and effective action” to address highlighted concerns.

Another inspection of its Hove premises in Goldstone Villas also rated the childcare provider as inadequate prompting a move by the industry watchdog to cancel the nursery’s registration after eight years in operation.

A similarly damning inspection of its Stanford Avenue premises was also carried out in November 2014 with another inadequate rating issued.

Carl Mehta, head of investigations and enforcement operations at the commission, said: “Our inquiry has already resulted in millions of pounds of charitable funds being publicly accounted for on the register of charities, and we will continue to crack down on defaulters, showing that we will not tolerate charities that demonstrate contempt for the public and their donors by failing to meet reporting requirements.

“As we continue to target defaulting charities, the message to trustees is simple; submitting this annual information is your legal responsibility, even if you delegate it to charity staff or your accountants to do.”

The Argus was unable to get in touch with anybody connected with Little Oaks.