(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.

If you thought Yentob looked over-promoted, shifty and out of his depth, flip over to the Permanent Secretaries currently giving evidence to the PAC. Those that think that senior civil servants are our brightest and best should watch this:

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/da56e29f-2dc5-46cf-be0a-13f90698f69e

Oh dear god - just watched several minutes of that and wish I hadn't

Concerning Yentob's shifty appearance, I sometimes can't help wondering exactly what's in this for him and just what his motivation is in "helping" youngsters who don't actually seem to be being helped at all. I also imagine there's a lot still to come crawling out of the woodwork ...

So one of the reasons DH and I are so involved with the charity work we do is because there is more abuse using charities. Little things like charging the right amount for work performed is easily overlooked. I know one charity in Denmark that we were starting to get involved with was not kosher at all. They needed marketing material and DH said that the local college could do it as part of their final year project with his employers Marketing department and chief marketing officer overseeing the project, with no cost to the charity. The CEO of the charity had a shit fit and insisted the marketing work go to this company, who DH later found out was owned by his BIL. DH reported this to the police and tax authorities and NOTHING was done. I can't help but wonder how much this goes on in the charity sector.

Think about it.... the tax authorities don't care because they make more money from these companies having profits that are taxable. The police don't care because its a white collar crime that isn't viewed as serious because the victim isn't physically hurt. Also there is a huge negative view for going after charities.

Oh my goodness, I've just been watching. Reassuring that they are being properly grilled now but why weren't questions asked years ago? Why did the government keep giving KC money and being so patient in waiting for some results that justified such huge expenditure on such a little local charity?

I thought Yentob actually comes out of the interview well - he seems to care deeply about the children (though clearly knows nothing about the area) and he believed that it was doing good work.

KC on the other hand. It's difficult to believe that she was ever found to be credible or competent. She didn't seem to understand many of the questions, let alone know how to sound like a professional. I feel her success was probably a bit of the emperor's new clothes - everyone thought someone else had checked out that there was some substance to her talk.

I'd absolutely love for Paxman to have a go at CB and do a Michael Howard on her. Where has she gone? I can't work out if she's completely deluded and genuinely thinks she's done nothing wrong or if she knows she's been rumbled and has gone into hiding. I can't stand the DM but am impressed by the way they've gone after CB/KC even though it's embarrassing for Cameron. I watched a bit of the select committee and was squirming for those civil servants. It was painful to watch.

I don't know about Paxman interviewing her. To paraphrase something I read once in the NY Times, I would like to see how she looks in an orange jumpsuit.

This is an interview on the Vanessa Feltz show on Radio London yesterday (1:07 in) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035d8n7 with a KC 'ambassador' and two employees, who were - somewhat unbelievably, it turns out, actually put forward by CB - amazing, car-crash stuff. (Whatever the £46m went on, it certainly wasn't media training, you have to feel).

Don't actually like Vanessa Feltz much but she she really keeps her cool - and lets them dig their own graves very beautifully. As an added bonus, the "London's Burning" slam poetry thrown into the mix by the 'ambassador' adds a delightfully surreal touch.

Oh thank you Antpodder, thank you!

Am weeping with laughter

'SHE WILL RISE AGAIN!'

Sorry, Auntpodder

Wow that was car crash radio. The unboundaried nature of the funding was clear. It felt like listening to members of a cult after the founder had committed suicide, if you know what I mean. The people who worked there still totally unquestioningly supported CB even though the parliamentary committee highlighted serious short comings in the decisions within the government to continually support KC financially. The ambassador no doubt was paid in an envelope too.

Brilliant. The woman ranting about not wanting to give her name names the other person that didn't want to give their name!!!

Wow how talented is Vanessa Feltz! She really asked the right questions and structured the interview so you got answers eventually.

Fantastic interview. No wonder they're pissed, their gravy train has well and truly gone off the rails. Not before time, after listening to their comments.

The "ambassador" didn't come into contact wih KC until he was 22. Some "Kid".

I didn't listen to all of the interview - but I think you are being a bit unfair about the interviewees.

Asking the guy how much personal support (envelope cash) that he got is a pretty personal question.

Lots of charities working with hard to reach young people work with YPs up to age 26 - this is not uncommon.

People working with challenging young people do so because they want to help, and because they have an ability to build a rapport with a YP, and an understanding of the issues faced by them. It is often a minimum wage job, and it is extremely hard work. These employees may not be massively articulate, or have an in depth understanding of the structure of the company they are working for, but this does not make them incompetent.

The failings of Kids Co were structural failings caused by the incompetence of the leadership team, it was not the fault of those on the ground who were, I imagine, doing the best job they could under very difficult circumstances.

It is often a minimum wage job,

It sure as hell wasn't in this case.

It made me feel exhausted. I didn't think V (as we should perhaps call her) came out of it that well but E and D didn't either. I thought V sounded quite patronising when talking to Kieron, especially when she kept saying how talented he was and what a good ambassador he was.
I really wish it had been a television interview so we could see the body language.

I don't think it was patronising. In a tricky set-up, V needed to move the conversation on, and he wasn't doing that, so she needed a non-antagonistic way of doing it. The flattery was just a technique, a clumsy one admittedly, but probably the best one in the circumstances. It's the fact that CB put them forward, I find amazing (were E and - particularly - D the best she could do?).

As it happens, I know someone who was a mentor at the KC School of Confidence programme and certainly, she and her mentee's experience was exemplary. Great case worker, definitely no "envelopes" (mentor was asked not to give a present of a kindle because it was too expensive), mentee went from no schooling or GCSEs to a good university in four years. One of the worse things about this whole disaster is that I suspect that there were some great case workers who put up with all the culty crap around CB because they were committed to helping kids, knew how to do it properly and they're now out of a job.

I listened to the interview and was struck by the similarity of demeanour between Camilla and the woman who got so overwrought. The lack of professionalism and substance to their responses. The rhetoric. The apparent obliviousness between their responses and what the question was looking for. I can well understand why Camilla put her forward.

I presume, stopping, that CB had been successful with this approach in the past and can't see why it won't work again.

But the overall effect of that interview was a sub-AliG "is it because I is black" ambassador, a gap yah trustafarian and a somewhat deluded older woman who didn't make much sense.

D@1:14 is hilarious. Sceeching, whitesplaining, "I think you need to go away" (to the presenter), etc. Car crash, as someone says up thread.

It sure as hell wasn't in this case

Where did you find the info on how much different staff were paid - the only thing I could find was how much CB was paid.

They were evading income tax and NI, so there's a fair extra whack on top of your pay to start with.

I listened to the whole thing. I thought the question about how much cash was in the envelopes was completely reasonable. If a charity is being transparent about what it does - which it should - then he should have been able say how much he used to receive, how much others used to receive, and what the money was spent on.

The woman who tried to stop Vanessa asking the question merely succeeded in giving the impression that they had something to hide.

If those were really the best three that CB could come up with, she should be worried. I can't help wondering if they were the only three.

The question about how much cash was in the envelopes was entirely reasonable. We know from his answer that some cash was related to travel expenses that were reimbursed which I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on. However, based on his answer there was excess cash given to him and I would have loved to have known just about much they gave out each week. Based on the numbers, I would not be surprised if he was given GBP200+ a week, which is GBP10K a year. It would explain the gap in their expenses.

Now, just think..... If you had more than one child from a family receiving cash in envelopes, that is potentially a lot of cash going to one household. With that income, would those families have qualified for the benefits they received or would their income have been too high? It is a lot of 'if's' BUT I think it was an extremely important question to ask.