(part 2) to think that Camila Batmanghelidgh must be lying when she says she has done nothing wrong in her spending of Kids' Company Funding?

[LuluJakey1]

She is like Jimmy Saville in that what she has been doing has been under all of all our noses and we have refused to speak up about it or believe it.

It is not just the luvvies who have been up close and personal with her- involved with the charity and CB at a very close level, some even Trustees. It is also the employees and the parents of children, the children themselves, the volunteers. We are not talking about a hidden mis-use of funding. We are talking aout a whole culture of open waste and self-indulgence.

I know it is from The Daily Mail but it is actually an interview with het.

//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3199527/My-heart-clear-says-Kids-Company-boss-Batmanghelidjh-admits-charity-paid-school-fees-employees-children-denies-wrongdoing.html

£5000 a month rent on an Art Deco House with private swimming pool - which houses a member of staff, and the swimming pool is used by CB but hot by any children- they are 'not allowed' (her words)

£40,000 chauffeur- now a specialist worker (according to CB). also has private school and therapist funding for his 2 children.

Staff( how many?) have their children sent to private schools because the job is stressful and it is part of a 'staff well-being package'

The Chauffeur's sister is also employed - now as a 'brilliant accountant', last summer as 'the woman who does my sewing' (mind you that would be a full-time job in itself, but it does imply the charity pays for those vile outfits much as I suspected)

25 young people given £769,000 a year funding - £31,000 a year each, to do nothing. They are CB's specially selected young people- many of whom have received funding for many years. She describes them as 'like a family, hanging round the house'. She deals with their funding herself.

Yet STILL CB complains staff should not have spoken up about any of this and implies those who have will suffer for it.

In my view this woman and her behaviours are corrupt, dishonest and immoral.

Are my views unreasonable? I feel this could be jus the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is yet to emerge and prosecutions will be very likely.

I think there should be a down- to the -bone, in-depth investigation of every aspect of the work of this charity and of CB. Not simply any concerns that have now been raised but a complete trawl of the spending, the practices and the behaviours of CB herself.

[Hellocampers]

Mmmm you lost me at comparing her to the paedophile and necrophiliac Jimmy Saville really op.

[LineyReborn]

Read the first thread. The comparisons are about how someone was in plain sight, cavorting with politicians, royalty and luvvies for so long, without being checked and balanced.

[LuluJakey1]

Nope- the comparison is to particular behaviours. Read the previous thread- we have been through this.

It is the cult of the personality
The emporer's new clothes- everyone knew, no one was brave enough to speak up
The creation of the myth that is held up as truth but in the repeated re-tellling the details change and the flaws/lies are self-exposed.

[hackmum]

"I think it was maybe 300 'kids' turning up throughout the whole day for money / vouchers / presents and they counted in all the possible extended family members to make the 3000 figure?"

(This is LineyReborn's comment at the end of the first thread.)

That makes perfect sense: take the real figure, multiply it by 10. Why haven't all charities cottoned on to that?

So 300 kids turn up on Christmas Day, ferried there by taxi which, I guess, costs at least twice as much as normal on Christmas Day as any other day. But perhaps some of them shared.

[LuluJakey1]

Or even the emperor's new clothes!

[InimitableJeeves]

One example I have recently come across of the fall out from this: refugee mother and child, child is 5 with severe problems which are partly attributable to his experiences in his country of origin but also likely to be due to unmet SEN. London councils were bouncing them between each other with temporary housing in different areas and all refusing to take responsibility. Mother was referred to KC, who sorted out long term temporary housing and kept badgering the council to provide long term settled housing, which was finally sorted out shortly before they folded. They referred the mother to a charity which has succeeded in getting the child an Education Health and Care Plan and a school place. KC also provided a key worker who was able to organise sorely needed occupational therapy and play therapy for the child, and a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as giving practical help around entitlement to benefits.

Suddenly overnight all that help disappeared apart from the education charity, and the child has noticeably regressed. The mother, who has also been through hell, has no idea what to do or where to turn to: the council is offering nothing. The infuriating thing is that the key worker is still there, but all her expertise and know-how are being wasted. We were told that the government were organising another charity to take over, but no effort has been made to put this mother in touch with that charity. Surely as a matter of common sense it would have been better to keep the KC infrastructure whilst putting another charity in charge whilst everything was sorted out? Leaving a child like this without support is a totally false economy as it will just cost more to sort out the mess later.

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Thanks for the new thread Lulu. The last one was fascinating.

[nauticant]

some grain of truth in her idea that the tide of tories and other governmentarians has turned against her because she has threatened to go public with certain inside information

Even if we assume this is true then what it means is truly horrible. It means CB was keeping child abuse quiet while her ego was getting stoked by blowing £20M+ per year in a Lady Bountiful performance but once the money tap was turned off she felt an overwhelming urge to reveal all. That looks far worse than any of the mainstream criticisms that have been made against her.

[GriefLeavesItsMark]

In a Daily Telegraph article dated 6 December 2007 it is stated that she worked as a nanny in Kensington. Probably nearer the truth than her description as a teenaged travelling therapist for the disfunctional wealthy.

[jeronimoh]

InimitableJeeves - the education, health and care plan won't have disappeared.

That is the responsibility of the LA and KC going under should have made no difference at all.

[jeronimoh]

'KC also provided a key worker who was able to organise sorely needed occupational therapy and play therapy for the child, and a referral for cognitive behavioural therapy,'

Presumably that was all put in the EHCP so the LA will have to provide it.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

WRT to the poster who asked at the end of the last thread if CB had simply pocketed the money.

I don't think so. I don't think she deliberately set out to scam or deceive. I think she just throws.money at things to make them better and doesn't have a clue about financial management.

[theredlion]

Thank you for the new thread Lulu

[Mrsmorton]

Hi liney [waves]

Why did we get a new thread? The last one wasn't full?

Anyway, I love this topic. So so so many institutions, communities and companies have this sort of character. All piss and wind and emperor's new clothes. Loving the thread.

[LineyReborn]

Old thread up to 996 posts, MrsM.

[InsertUsernameHere]

I've been following this thread with interest and while ironing last night was pondering on what the lessons learnt should be

• as boffin says protected titles for psychotherapists. Also protected titles for all therapists for example at the moment "clinical psychologist" is protected as is "practitioner psychologist" but common or garden "psychologist" is not
  

Significant caution about charities/private companies providing input to vulnerable groups. Working with the stated client group of KC you would expected lots of challenges - so you get in a precarious position when there is a vested interest (ie access to funding) of over stating success and it works against critical reflection and evaluation. One of the outcomes of the Francis report (north Staffordshire enquiry) was a duty of candour. This needs to be explicitly extended to third sector organisations.

What are other people's thought?

[LuluJakey1]

I think that:
a) CB probably had the best intentions of children at heart. However, she
b) Allowed herself to be carried away by her influence and power and either subconscioysly ir deliberaely began creating the myths that enganced that position and so has made herself look foolish. In addition she
c) Became profligate with the funds and this was fed by the lack of rigorous accountability. She then 'rewarded' staff and clients with inappropriate use of funding. This has led to the situation that now exists where her apparent lack of control of proper use of charity funds is now indefensible. Chauffeur, seamstress, art deco house and swimming pool which clients don't use but CB does, use of charity funded nurse for private healthcare and so on.

She believes her own self-publicity and anything toid in KC has been lost. I do have to say I have seen no evidence of the amazing work of KC.

Give me £20,000,000 a year and we (up here in the North) could run 5 secondary schools for 4000 children full-time for a year- staffing (teachers, mentors, learning support staff, family suppirt staff) safeguarding, all subjects, school meals, get good exam results, provide activities and fantatsic links to external agencies for specialist support. All fully accounted for with proveable outcomes. All high-quality and engaing the most challenging and vulnerable children and parents. No seamstresses, chauffeurs, art deco houses, swimming pools, private schools for staff's children, bizarre clothing provided but high quality, full time provision for 4000 individual children. That is what state schools do. That is what she should be able to prove she does and she can't.

[LuluJakey1]

Sorry about the bizarre spellings. I am having ipad problems

[LuluJakey1]

toid=good
I think the rest are just about recogniseable

[Pneumometer]

On the other thread, now about to fill, someone references a Guardian story about the feeding of the four thousand, and alludes to the ever lasting MN chicken. Indeed, it's an everlasting MN chicken. We earlier remarked that if we knew the actual quantities we could work out rough bounds on headcount, and here we have numbers.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/25/kids-ompany-christmas-party-the-oval

What began as a party for a few hundred people a decade ago has mushroomed into a giant logistical exercise feeding 4,000.

Cars have to be arranged to come and drop people off at the grounds – there is a huge traffic jam outside the Alec Stewart gate. Cooking begins four days before the event, with food donated by various companies.

This year, the event needed 30 pre-cooked turkeys, 202kg of roast potatoes, 322kg of basmati rice, 4,000 bags of crisps, 52kg of stuffing, 52kg of frozen parsnips, 78kg of pasta and 1,500 mince pies.

I won't show my workings, but I reckon that averages a thin slice of turkey about the size of a playing card, a third of a roast potato, two teaspoons each of parsnip and stuffing, a couple of dessert spoons of pasta, a third of a mince pie and a big dollop of rice. No one's getting fat, are they?

[KanyeWestPresidentForLife]

Inimitable, someone may have told you that but personally I would have huge reservations over whether it is true or not, particularly given that they seem to have helped very few actual children.

But regardless, if they were just helping a few hundred people (which it's looking like is the accurate figure) at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds each whilst the vast majority of needy families in that borough are shuffles through underfunded ineffective services: well I don't care how bloody marvellous it was for that one person when it's done at the expense of thousands of other people.

[DriverSurpriseMe]

Place marking because the previous thread was so fascinating. I really hope the full picture emerges and the people responsible (CB being first in line) are taken to account for the financial mismanagement, the wasteful spending, the inappropriate spending, the enormous sums of taxpayers' money involved, the lies surrounding what KC actually DID... I could go on.

As for whether CB pocketed charity money, well, who can say how independently wealthy she is? What is certain, is that she had a whole team of lackeys attending to her every need (seamstress, chauffeur, nurse, seven PAs working 24/7) and it's pretty damn unlikely she paid for them herself.