To not understand the 'kids company' closure

[LunchpackOfNotreDame]

The news is saying the government fully supported the charity and handed over £3million to them, yet on the news tonight the protesters were blaming Cameron.

I thought it was financial irregularities that created the issues?

Its now obvious that there were significant financial irregularities in the way it was being run and I would not be surprised that investigations show that fraud was taking place.

Call me a cynic, but I've been expecting allegations of fraud to surface ever since the story broke. It seems inevitable.

The Evening Standard was hugely involved in bigging them up - about 10 years ago it had an article on this tiny charity KC which helped a couple hundred kids in south London, and indeed seemed to be doing great work, and then made KC its charity of the year.

Five years later CB is the rent-a-gob for any media needing a quote about children needing help and the charity is getting millions, but there seems to be no more admin structure than when it was tiny, which looks like a huge mistake on behalf of all the funders, possibly particularly the ES, as Government and most funding bodies usually require a lot of paperwork proving what you have done with their money.

20 years ago my first job was working with "young people known to the police" in the same place as where KC started. The police, social services and local businesses funded activities for kids in order to keep them occupied, clean and fed, and generally not committing crime (bearing in mind all the kids had criminal records or their parents were in prison). The newspapers then had a great time shouting how terrible it was that taxpayers' money was going towards young criminals and paying for them to go skating/bowling etc - but then have been silent until now when a charity does the same.

apologies in advance as I haven't read the whole thread, too ill to concentrate but too ill to do much more than comment on stuff online at the mo!
I did notice one of the posts said that a whole bunch of senior managers had left recently, and factoring in other things such as Camila B's comments since and my years of experience in the charity sector, it looks like a case of what my friend would call "founder syndrome". ie, problems inherent in the organisation due to the founder still being present and not fully competent, and the Board and senior staff not working together to address this, and the funders not being robust enough in their checking mechanisms.
I've heard her quoted as saying it was the government's fault for not providing for kids etc, hence Kids Company got overwhelmed..... but it has always been the case, to a greater or lesser extent, that govts don't provide enough for vulnerable kids, as charity workers it's our responsibility to work out what we can afford to do for the neediest kids and not make promises/set up expectations we can't fulfil.
The thorny issue of giving some/all of the kids pocket money is an interesting one. A BBC rpt quoted a kid saying something about spending the money on drugs, but I have to say, having been in the situation some of these kids were in, I would have been so grateful to have received money and an oyster card, it would have totally changed my life and I would have used it very responsibly .....it's a question of how you oversee that system and I imagine that would have to rely, to a certain extent, on being a good judge of character, which is a hard skill to ascertain in recruitment, which is why you'd need a long probationary period for relevant staff.
I think the other thing going on here probably is the fallacy on which the charity sector rests - that there are enough highly-skilled people willing to give their time for free to sit on Boards. And the issues around govts increasingly outsourcing to the third sector (charities, social enterprises etc), which has good and bad points.

train it's good to read someone defending that kids were given cash

The idea, that this should never happen is ludicrous. And yes, shows a complete non-understanding of the position these kids are in

Apparently a lot of the immediate work will be picked up by the charity 'Family Lives'. There are emergency meetings taking place about how to provide provision. If children are falling between the gaps it's largely because of the way kids company went about closing rather than anybody else's fault.

I don't think anybody would dispute that there are occasions where giving children cash is the right thing to do. I think the problem is

A) The indiscriminate giving of the cash. If people who don't particularly need the money or spend it on inappropriate things are getting the cash, you have to question that if the funding had gone elsewhere it would have been more effectively targeted to the most needy and helped more of those who were in the most dire circumstances without things like clothing, food or bedding rather than those who wanted a spliff.

And

B) The purpose in giving out the money. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that KC's much touted yoga, art, drama, food and education services were chronically underused and they were massively over staffed. Yet they gave out money so children came in once a week to get it and they had their name on the books which fudged the figures of the number they were 'helping'. The money was a means of drawing a veil over their ineffectiveness. And if we are simply going to hand out pocket money, that can be done without funding largely empty and redundant centres and paying wages for people with no job to do.

marmaladeatkinz it's a difficult one isn't it (giving kids cash)? But I don't think it's impossible to do it effectively.
I've never been as poor, or missed out on as much, as I did when I was a teenager and there were no part-time jobs to be had where I lived - and I've been on a low income (or occasionally benefits) all my adult life!
I can easily imagine situations in which that money went on food for the child/young person and their siblings....you can argue that if that's the case, then the kids should be in care, but unfortunately the care system is such a lottery that it could well be safer for them to stay at home being fed by charity whilst the parent(s) (sometimes) choose to spend money on other things and the rest of society chooses not to address this.

but yes, the way the pocket money system was dealt with would be a big concern for me.
It's analogous to the situation my friend found herself in when drugs ruined her life for 10 years - she says she wishes it hadn't been so easy to get money for the drugs (she would non-invasively beg, sitting on the street with her hand out) and that what she needed at that time was the right help, not cash (although obviously she needed food and shelter and whatever autonomy she could manage at the time).

That's good to hear lazy I don't know anything about that organisation. I'm glad something is happening

But if kids are falling between the gaps, it is most likely because these children are so phenomenal ly difficult to engage.

Hmm...a quick look at Family Lives website; seems that organisation focuses on supporting parents, primarily and then families. No real mention of children

Fairbridge may be able to take on some of the 13-26s its their standard client group, and maybe they'll be able to get some more funding...

There might be an argument for giving kids cash - but then you have to document what was given to who, by who and why. Boring but necessary if you want to keep your books in order - and keeping your books in order enables planning and reduces the risk of suddenly finding you have no money left.

If government money is funding cash handouts you really need to explain why cash was given to Jo in Southwark when Jim in Margate doesn't have access to such funds.

Yes for sure merry. That's not the criticism of K.handing out cash that I have heRd though

Any charity should have decent reserves. Normally when they don't, they are tiny very underfunded charities. A charity of this size should have decent reserves. That is basic financial management.

Not RTFT but having read various articles and listened to the R4 programme it would seem that there have been problems for a while, which the founder, senior managers and trustees have failed to address. I wonder if the charity got too big and complex for the founder to remain in control as she didn't have to skills to oversee the organisation that developed. Not doubting her sincerity/good intentions nor her skills in fund raising.

I also wonder if it became a bit of a "cult of personality", which meant that people were less inclined to ask difficult questions, as it was seen as questioning CB. When anyone did ask questions they have been attacked (and in some cases pretty viciously), which I thought was a bit fishy.

Apparently, the charities own financial directors advised they needed to stop running their finances in a "hand to mouth" manner and had to build up financial reserves (several £million's) but KC did not do so. Alan Yentob has been quoted (months ago) as having said it was "probably a mistake" not to have done this as advised- yet no moves had been made to work towards this position.

Concerns have also been raised with regards to use of funds from donors. Under charity law money given for specific projects can only be used for the intentions for which it was donated and not diverted elsewhere. The R4 programme read emails that suggested that this was not happening with some donations, and KC employees were then scrabbling around trying to justify how they had spent the money when asked to account for how it had been used.

I also understand there is some doubt over the effectiveness of certain aspects of KC's work, I don't have any particular knowledge in this field so I can't comment on whether these were well-founded or not. Combined with allegations of not reporting abuse, mishandling complaints and giving money to young people in the knowledge they might use them for drugs and so on, I think their reputation was getting a bit of a battering.

I think if you combine all of these concerns you can understand why there was some unease about giving more public funds to KC. Once these concerns became public, other donors stopped giving so much and because the organisation had not built up any financial reserves it was unable to weather the storm. I think it is a bit much for CB to claim there was no financial mismanagement at all, I think it is clear that all was not run as well as it ought to be.

That said, it's a real shame for those who relied on them and I hope other charities and council services can pick up the slack. May be wishful thinking though.

I think that is why the cash in envelopes have been criticised though - the feeling is that it wasn't recorded, was often handed out under duress and (at least sometimes) wasn't used for a good purpose.

The charity have argued that they never turn a child away, but they haven't been able to argue that they have good systems in place.

The problem is as well, that as money is being handed out in brown envelopes with no records kept it's extremely doubtful that all the money unaccounted for went to children. When no records are kept and money is just handed out, there's no way to stop staff or volunteers putting their hands in the till either.

There have been allegations made today that £10,000 went missing once and no report was made. A staff member has said it was probably done by a BMW driving drug dealer who visited the premises. Even if it was, the fact an outsider could just walk in and steal that amount of money and not have it investigated or reported means staff probably could too.

And if that account is accurate; this is a dealer who drove a BMW and stole £10,000 cash. So not a small time crook shoplifting and knocking out a bit of weed. What sort of charity responsible for vulnerable children would allow that sort of person on the premises?

It's also been reported today that the alleged sexual offences are grooming of teenage girls. CB is insisting these are untrue, which she cannot know for certain. Someone who cared about the children involved would not be labelling them liars without investigation. The whole thing has chilling echoes of Rotherham where things were hushed up because the victims were seen as sacrificial lambs whose abuse it was necessary to hush up to preserve a greater good.

I'd also like to know where the trustees were in all this? Not sure what responsibilities trustees have, but surely they should have had oversight of what was going on?

Having had an experience a few months ago where I had to handle a complaint from a Kids company worker who asked me and I quote 'what the FUCK (our service) thought we were doing' in reference to an almost 30 year old violent offender.

I had to raise concerns about exactly was going on in that charity when they apparently have such unprofessional and abusive staff and dubious interpersonal and unboundaried relationships between staff and service users ( I can't expand on that due to confidentiality but it was worrying).

There's a program on BBC 1 about the whole shenanigans now.