(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.

Thanks for posting that link about Ofsted inspection MrsJ

I can't find either of the Ofsted reports on the Tree House on the Ofsted website, but will keep looking (always interesting to see what the inspectors actually say, not just the headline rating)

If KC weren't providing full time education, I wonder whether the children were getting any other tuition anywhere else - arguably their parents could be failing to ensure that they receive a suitable education (a criminal offence that is seldom pursued) if they are only getting part time tuition.

Here's the <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=reports.ofsted.gov.uk/index.php%3Fq%3Dfiledownloading/%26id%3D2280021%26type%3D1%26refer%3D0&ved=0CCUQFjACahUKEwj078LypePHAhVBtRQKHY75DqA&usg=AFQjCNH4-g3gSaniHKaS4rz_yEMlUjpUqQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ofsted report for the "tree house", rated Good, apparently.

22 children on the role from 5-8, sometimes more older children but maximum 40. Operates 3.30 to 6pm. 42 permanent staff and more volunteers and students.

On that staff student ratio anything less than outstanding is a disgrace.

Select committee inquiry into the government's involvement with Kids Company just launched: terms of reference. Says oral evidence will begin in October. You can follow them on Twitter for latest updates: @CommonsPACAC.

Very useful, thanks Wigeon!

Also MPs are apparently going to ask for the last £3M back from the creditors! Sunday Times link (the last bit is behind a paywall, can anyone with access summarise?)

And this too...
Spending watchdog launches Kids Company inquiry

gu.com/p/4cfgn?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

This is an interesting article too www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/14/kids-company-pledged-20m-government-camila-batmanghelidjh-oliver-letwin

battleaxe given the lurid allegations Camilla Batmanghelidjh has made in the past six weeks and her elastic relationship with the truth, if she told me there was a hole in my arse I'd have to feel and check.

ComposHat- agree. I am watching this unfold with interest.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/21/life-for-kids-company-clients-six-weeks-on-i-took-loads-of-pills
New article in the Guardian. Camila quotes some interesting figures re criminal incidents since KC closed.

Hmm. It all sounds very Dickensian.

That guardian article seems incredibly vague. If the charity was doing good work, it seems a shame that they couldn't be bothered to do the due diligence required to run a charity in this day and age. I'm not convinced by the people the stories from the people they were apparently helping, either. Any kind of intervention with a human face will be appreciated by these people but that doesn't mean the intervention itself was sound. Likewise, there will be ongoing incidents with people living unstable lives in difficult circumstances, whatever is being done to help them. There will have been incidents prior to Kids Company withdrawing support, I have no doubt. I don't understand why counselling for a parent with depression was being funded by the charity - surely this is a matter for a GP and the NHS? As far as I know, no charity is funded in areas where the state has a responsibility to provide the resources. I'm also bewildered why they are talking to a 21 year old when the charity was apparently about children. It sounds as if the charity was well-intentioned but an absence of clear ethical boundaries boundaries and commitment to fostering genuine growth towards independence has resulted in clients who were over-dependent. And who may well now suffer unduly because inappropriate interventions have been brought to an abrupt end.

The thing that leapt out at me from that article was the suggestion that now that Kids Company has closed there's serious crime in the area. Very lazy.

Camila quotes some interesting figures re criminal incidents since KC closed.

But doesn't compare them with levels when KC were open. Which is odd, yes?

The claim that children in London don't have access to phones is, shall we say, "startling".

I wonder why people on here are so invested in rubbishing anything that suggests that there was a need for what KC was doing, even if they were doing it badly? They were helping some desperate people, it would hardly be surprising that if they can't get the basics via KC they may turn to crime.

Inimitable, we don't know if there is a cause and effect relationship here between the disappearance of KC and the crimes she has cited. Indeed her testimony has shown to be unreliable on so many occasions these incidences of crime can not categorically be believed to exist. That is the problem. Not people wanting to have a go.

Don't let's forget that a few weeks ago CB hired a PR agency to repair her image. Is the Guardian article the first attempt to change the story?

Well if that's the best they can do, then they ain't much of a PR company.

Inimitable if a few hundred people can not get things from kids company why should they turn to crime anymore than the hundreds of thousands who were never had any contact with them? It is a very poor excuse. Whatever help KC offered to a few is outweighed by the fact that that amount of money should have been able to offer real meaningful help to a lot more children countrywide and those children have lost out due to the money spent on dubious interventions with a few children/adults by KC.

I note the board of trustees predicted riots and they have not been forthcoming. The reason for this is that the charity was involved in relatively small geographical areas with relatively limited numbers of people but overstated its client numbers.

In the Guardian article I was struck by the fact that the distressed clients sounded like they had almost been groomed to look to KC for everything.