Directors across the North are being sent to a “free, impartial” helpline from an official GOV.UK page, even though the helpline’s founder also sits on the board of an insolvency practice. The Insolvency Service’s Director information hub lists The Directors Helpline under “Company advisory and membership services” with the line “Free, impartial guidance for businesses.” It carries no conflict warning alongside the link.

Here’s the nub. The Directors Helpline names Jonathan Cooper as its founder. Companies House records show “COOPER, Jonathan Andrew” as an active director of JT Maxwell Limited, appointed on 4 April 2023. Both facts are public: one from the helpline’s own website, the other from Companies House.

It’s not only a board seat. JT Maxwell’s 8 September 2025 confirmation statement sets out shareholdings, including “Shareholding 3: Jonathan Cooper – 424 ordinary shares.” JT Maxwell’s registered office is listed at 1 Sackville Street, Lisburn. In plain terms, the helpline’s founder holds a direct economic interest in a licensed insolvency practitioner (IP) firm.

The Directors Helpline markets itself as “a free, impartial and confidential helpline,” adding that it’s “not the insolvency practitioner” and works with “a trusted panel of Licensed firms.” One page also claims it is “Endorsed on .gov.” None of that, taken alone, is unusual in a commercial lead‑generation model. But when government signposting uses the word “impartial,” transparency needs to be watertight.

Funding disclosures on the helpline’s sister page are clearer: “We are totally funded through our professional panel partners,” and staff bios reference managing relations with “our panel of licensed insolvency practitioners.” That tells directors fees are likely flowing somewhere in the chain. The Financial Conduct Authority has already banned referral fees for consumer debt packagers because of conflicts, even if that specific rule does not cover corporate directors’ advice. The direction of travel on conflicts is obvious.

GOV.UK does include a general caveat that listings may be “paid-for and free of charge” and urges users to understand costs. But it still presents The Directors Helpline as “Free, impartial guidance” with no explicit statement about its founder’s role or shareholding in a live IP firm. That’s a framing issue the Insolvency Service could fix in an afternoon.

Why does this matter on our patch? Distressed owners from Oldham to Newcastle don’t ring a helpline expecting a sales funnel. They expect early‑stage options-time‑to‑pay with HMRC, independent legal and tax angles, restructuring and, only where truly needed, the terminal routes. If a principal behind the helpline also helps run and part‑owns an IP firm, there’s a clear perceived incentive to route callers towards formal insolvency handled within that ecosystem. Even where advice is offered in good faith, perception shapes trust.

JT Maxwell isn’t a distant player. Beyond its Lisburn base, Gazette notices and Companies House filings show Northern companies using “C/O JT Maxwell Limited, 169 Union Street, Oldham” or a Hollinwood Business Centre address during liquidations in 2024–25. That puts this squarely on the desks of directors in Greater Manchester and across the North West.

The Insolvency Service, for its part, has invested in this hub since launch in July 2023 and says it is improving content and using analytics to understand user journeys. Good. The next step is sunlight: require private providers on the hub to publish outcomes data-what percentage of callers were signposted to time‑to‑pay, informal turnaround, CVA, administration, CVL or dissolution. With hard numbers in the open, incentives and patterns will be crystal clear.

There’s a straightforward fix. Re‑label the listing so it reads along the lines of “Commercial advisory service. Initial contact may be free. Connected to a licensed insolvency practitioner firm. See disclosure.” Then link to a one‑page conflict note setting out ownership, directorships and any referral or fee arrangements with IPs, lenders and debt‑advice panels, dated and reviewed annually. That’s normal hygiene for public signposting.

Government pages should also group providers by funding and status, putting regulated charities such as Business Debtline up front and clearly marked as free. Alongside each commercial listing, add a short cooling‑off checklist and parallel links to non‑commercial routes so that a director always sees more than one door. In a crisis, clarity beats clever marketing.

For our Northern readers; the hub currently gives a sheen of neutrality to a helpline whose founder is a director and shareholder of an IP firm. That combination doesn’t automatically make the advice poor-but it must be spelled out, loudly, so directors can choose with eyes open. If outcomes data starts landing in public-clean, comparable and independent-poor practice will be obvious fast.