The owners of two nurseries and a care home which closed after damning inspection reports should not be allowed to work with “vulnerable children and adults”, according to families.

Parents and care staff claim they are owed tens of thousands of pounds in wages, redundancy payments and refunds for paid childcare that was not provided.

Little Einsteins nursery in Glasgow closed suddenly last month after the owner was unable to obtain insurance following a series of critical Care Inspectorate reports. Inspectors had to intervene after observing children being fed raw meat.

Douglas Hutchison, Executive Director of Education for Glasgow City Council, said in a letter to one parent that the situation with the nursery was “unprecedented”
and that it had been operating without insurance “for a number of months”.

He wrote: “We have never had a nursery in Glasgow perform so badly at inspection that it has been unable to obtain insurance cover.”

READ MORE: Children served raw meat at Glasgow nursery owned by poorly performing care home firm 

He said the council had also suffered financial losses for paid placements and was pursuing this through debt collection processes.

Rowandale Care Home, housed in the same building, was shut down last year amid “serious concerns” over standards while another Little Einsteins nursery in Dundee has also closed.

All are said to have been owned by Glasgow businessman Azeem Khan who has been associated with a string of different companies.

(Mr Khan is pictured far left)

The nurseries and care home were operated by Forth Care Ltd under Mr Khan’s directorship until September 2021.

Forth Care currently has an active proposal to be struck off with overdue accounts indicated but is now said to be under the control of Umar Ishaq, a family friend of Mr Khan. 

Mr Khan did not respond to repeated inquiries from The Herald.

The Glasgow nursery was also at one point trading as Little Einsteins Nurseries Glasgow Ltd with Company House records listing Mr Khan’s wife Sobia as director.

Mr Khan, 42, is also listed online as the director of Bluemont Developments and a former director of Kelvingrove College and Wee Scholars Ltd.

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He owns another care home, Hector House, in the south side of Glasgow.  

Staff who worked at Rowandale care home and the nurseries have said they are pursuing tribunals for lost wages and redundancy payments.

Kyrie Anderson, who was deputy manager at the Glasgow nursery, claimed she was paid some of her owed wages by the owners in exchange for removing a critical Facebook post. She refused to take it down “until every member of staff was paid”.

She said: “When the care home was shut down his [Mr Khan’s] name was everywhere so he decided to take his name off everything, which is why is was put over to Umar and Sobia. He owned the business and had involvement until last week. We are being told there is no more money to pay us.”

READ MORE: Number of care home whistleblowing complaints fully investigated branded 'astonishing' 

Families said they had no complaints over the care provided by staff at the nursery and said they have registered a complaint with the council’s trading standards department.

Zoe Hunter, a parent, said: “There has been no communication with parents from the owners regarding the closure or the return of monies lost for the last two weeks of March or our deposits returned.”

Another parent, Kirsten Shenk, added: “This man needs to never be allowed to run businesses where he is involved with vulnerable children and adults again.”

A spokesman for Forth Care claimed the nursery’s licence had not been cancelled and said it was working to resolve the issues and reopen. 

He blamed “staff negligence” for the problems at Rowandale Care Home and said nursery staff had failed to manage the required insurance documents.

He added: “All staff wages including holiday pay have been paid to date even in these difficult times when these is no income from the business and  management is working to sort out remaining issues.”

(Article updated to state that Mr Khan was a director at Forth Care until September   2021.)