TAXPAYER-FUNDED academies have paid hundreds of thousands of pounds into the private businesses of directors and governors, an Observer investigation can reveal.

Payments include for services such as consultancy, training videos and legal advice by two of the town’s first academies. The related-party transactions total £245,387.

School bosses have said the transactions are always done at 'arms length’ and governors ensure value for money.

Accounts filed for the Langley Hall Primary Academy Trust, year ending August 2013, show it paid £23,527 to Chris Eaton - the husband of trustee and director of education Sally Eaton.

The payment is listed as 'purchased goods and services on behalf of the academy’. Mrs Eaton said it was reimbursement for her husband using his own credit card to pay for items including food for after school clubs when the academy was first set up.

The trust also paid £12,989 to Laser Learning Limited, a company owned by the couple, for a club booking system software and training videos.

Mrs Eaton, paid between £65,000-70,000 as director of education, said the couple have poured an estimated £200,000 of their time into setting up and running the school, in Langley Road.

“We want every penny of the money that we get for the children to go to the children and are proud of the services we have got here,” she added.

She said the company set up the school’s intranet for free - which would have normally cost £50,000. The school has been recommended on its handling of related-party transactions by the Education Funding Association, she added.

“I stopped working within the company the minute we heard we were opening the school. I devoted all of my time to the school. I was doing that for love,” she added.

A total of £23,235 for legal advice was paid to Aston Bond, where governor Richard Carleton is listed as a partner, the accounts show.

The Learning Alliance Academy Trust company, which runs Lynch Hill School Primary Academy, paid Breen Consulting a total of £103,050 from 2012-2013. It is run by Robert Breen, who was a governor at the time.

The trust also paid a total of £82,586 to Whites of Windsor where governor Carl White is director. The accounts say the payment was for grounds maintenance services.

A school statement read: “'Arms length’ transactions are conducted on such terms that could have been obtained in a transaction with an external party in which each side bargained knowledgeably and freely, unaffected by any relationship between them.

“These have been conducted in accordance with the school’s financial regulations and normal procedures.” Mrs Eaton added her school had explicit rules for related-party transactions, which include relevant people leaving meetings when bids are discussed.