(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.

would those families have qualified for the benefits they received

This is turning I to a witch-hunt. Kids company was at best incompetently run. This does not make its clients or its staff bad people. The blame can only lie with the Board of Trustees and the management team. This was not some massive scam that every client, and every employee were complicit in.

No it isn't turning this into a witch hunt. GBP10k a year coming into a low income family is a lot of money. Heck its about GBP15k a year salary. As a member of society I have a real problem with some being helped more than others when there isn't a formal process to identify the needs of those being helped. Handing out envelopes to kids, who might have been related and living in the same household, is not acceptable to me. Say, as an example, you have a family with 3DC all receiving envelopes with cash from KC and say each envelope has GBP200 in it. That is GBP600 a week, or GBP30k a year that a family could be receiving in addition to their benefits. That is a wholly unacceptable use of cash and I would hope that income of this magnitude would reduce the benefits the family receive.

Also, the staff or kids given the money are not to blame. They were following instructions and doing their jobs. I 150% blame the management and have said for a while they should be looking at a trial with substantial jail terms if found guilty of misappropriation of taxpayer funds. What makes me sick is that this group of 'leaders' took funds away from thousands of vulnerable people around the country. I am livid you would even suggest that I am turning this into a witch-hunt. There are so many kids who need help but don't get it because the LEAs and NHS units don't have the resources (cash) they need. It makes my blood boil that our politicians handed money over to KC when there was clearly an override of controls that were put in place to prevent this happening. We have a serious gap in care for the most vulnerable in part because money is being lost via funding these clowns to do a job that the LEA/NHS should be supported to do.

I am conservative without the capital and this 'Big Society' that Dave wants to build is not what I believe to be the best vehicle for truly helping the most vulnerable in our communities.

Also, listening to the interview I got the impression VF was being kind to 'Kieron' because she knew he was being set up and probably wasn't the right person to send to answer questions.

Supermum Apologies - I took your comment about subsistence funds + benefits as blaming those on benefits. As you do not blame staff or clients then I think we actually agree

The money handed out should have been far more tightly controlled. Reimbursing travel on receipt of ticket is fine, buying their lunch in centre or cafe with keyworker is fine, crisis payments if very carefully controlled is fine. What is not fine is handing out large sums of cash as a matterof course every single week - as you say other financial help is available and Kids Co should have been signposting YPs towards this rather than bankrolling them as a matter of course.

I also agree the money could have been far better spent several times over...

I don't blame the people who received the money at all. In fact I think it was probably quite cleverly distributed in a way which would have made it very, very difficult for the people receiving it to blow the whistle. Who is going to complain that their kid is getting brown envelopes stuffed with money when doing so would often mean an investigation into your benefits which you could ill afford? Some of the employees who were being paid as clients were receiving astronomical sums for jobs like painting and decorating and wouldn't have been able to survive in London on market wages. If they'd been paid market wages I'm sure they would have been much keener to question why they weren't getting N.I. stamps or pension contributions.

I think it's interesting as well that some ex service users, and the commons select committee have said that the money went straight to dealers in the black economy. Which would of course have perpetuated problems with drugs and gangs giving KC a self perpetuating stream of youngsters involved in drugs and gangs that KC could claim needed their 'help' and thus the cycle would go on. I don't think CB is as green as she pretends...

What is not fine is handing out large sums of cash as a matterof course every single week

I'd be less concerned had they been handling out Chris Martin's money. If a rich singer wishes to give his money away that's his business. But what was happening here was that the clients were receiving government money (as the government were a major funder of KC) without any of the checks, balances or assessments that governments do. CB was operating a parallel benefits scheme, handing out money willy-nilly to people who may or may not have been entitled to it (if viewed as benefits) and who may or many not have already claiming. It's hard to see how you can possibly defend that.

Apology accepted! As said, if this were all done with private donations I would have no problem with it but it was done with taxpayer funds that could have and should have been used to fund the existing structure that is crumbling due to chronic underfunding.

Want2be

I see the point you are making and I'm no supporter of KC. However.

Many families are living below the poverty line despite receiving benefits. There is genuine suffering and Kids Company would have witnessed that on a daily basis. They have stated that they were trying to make up for the shortfall (in many ways) for families who were unsuccessfully relying on the welfare system to survive. This was widely known and isn't KC's fault as such. At the time, I wondered why the government was choosing to support the charity when surely they could just have put the money straight into increasing benefits, but there you go. It was their choice and KC isn't to blame for that aspect of it.

KC was not purely funded by the taxpayer by any stretch of the imagination. It seems very ivory-tower-ish to say 'Well I hope the money in those brown envelopes was taken off their benefits because that sum of money would make a huge difference to the sum amount they were receiving altogether'. Something tells me (apart from the information you give about your very high salary on another thread) that you have no idea how difficult it is to survive on benefits or live beneath the poverty line whilst on benefits. I'm irked that you think someone should have gone around totting up and subtracting when you must know full well that the total sum of money entering the home was peanuts, even with the KC help.

No, I'm not in favour of the little brown envelope idea - I think the money should have gone directly to rail tickets, supermarket, education, whatever the individual legitimately needed it for. But I certainly don't think the family should have had their benefits cut to make everything 'fair'.

I know first hand what it's like to be poor. Make no mistake in that I know what it's like to have nothing. That is why I am outraged by there being no checks. We have no idea how much was in those envelopes but I don't think it is right that a family receiving significant amounts of cash via what was a predominately government funded charity is allowed to then claim the same benefits. The cash received should have been declared as income. That isn't an equitable system and Lambeth doesn't have a monopoly on poverty.

I grew up in the north west and there are some very poor people in Birkenhead, Salford and Blackpool as well as many other places around the country. Don't they deserve help too?

Also we don't know if the same amounts were handed out to all comers or whether there were favoured individuals who did better than others based on some hidden preferences.

I think the money should have gone directly to rail tickets, supermarket, education, whatever the individual legitimately needed it for

Absolutely this ^^

However deranged or incompetent, I honestly can't understand how anyone could have considered the envelopes a sensible way of doing things - which leads me to wonder yet again just what the money was being given for

I found this article from Sept 2014 - interesting to look at the final paragraphs and on the comment at the end of the article.

www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18199/kids_company_could_close_without_more_government_funding

Yes, the comment was particularly interesting, wasn't it?

Geoff Baker
Executive Director
UKAID
25 Sep 2014

Time for Kids Company to get itself a top fundraiser instead of whinging about shortage of cash. It's not the government's responsibility to keep Kids Company afloat. It also seems to me a vibrant accountant is needed to deal with the worrying and negative approach to its reserves. It's obvious from just a cursory look at its accounts Kids Company is overspending. Time to cut back or get a pro active fundraiser.

Interesting article.

What jumped out at me was the quote from CB saying the government needs to wake up to child protection, which she describes as its "Achilles’ heel".

Ironic when what precipitated the closure of KC were the allegations of sexual abuse of children on their premises. Apparently they were snoozing when it came to child protection themselves.

I am also sceptical about the cash in the envelopes supposedly being for travel expenses. All children who live in London are entitled to free travel on London buses. They might need support in applying for their oyster cards to get the free travel, but they shouldn't need cash.

People believed in Kids Company because it was effectively endorsed by government and by the BBC through charities like comic relief and children in need.

We were very clearly told over and over again that their methods might be unorthodox, but they worked.

In general people don't review annual reports and do audits before giving to a charity, but they tend to assume that somebody else has if the charity has the profile of Kids Company.

To be honest, I am making an assumption that Kids Company was a Children in Need recipient. I tried to check but it is not easy to find records of Children in Need spending. Website full of videos, pictures, celebrities and ways to donate, very short on facts.

In the wake of Alan Yentob's involvement with Kids Company, that doesn't fill me with confidence about any of the work they do.

I long ago stopped giving to Children in Need for that very reason. They are another 'untouchable' charity.

I tried to check but it is not easy to find records of Children in Need spending.

Most charity is just the purchase of indulgences: by giving money away, you feel more spiritual. CB and KC played massively on that, so that people giving them money could not only feel they were "doing good", but were giving money to a subversive, edgy organisation that was sticking it to the man. Smug self-satisfaction and hipster politics. What could be better for London luvvies?

www.standard.co.uk/news/prince-charless-day-on-the-other-side-of-the-tracks-6717082.html

Here is Prince Charles on Kids Company in 2009.

Can't decide if it's funny or frightening.

All the high profile 'doing it for the kids' grant givers seem to have had close ties to KC. (Although they obviously didn't find it so easy to get support from low profile organisations that do more comprehensive checks like the Pilgrim Trust).

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3307932/Four-hour-police-quiz-Kids-Company-s-Camila-Batmanghelidjh-child-abuse-allegations-detectives-pursue-criminal-inquiry-shamed-charity.html

Merrymouse I know it's been said that Charles's views bear the stamp of the last person he spoke to, but I can't help wondering where he got that figure about the "85 per cent success rate she gets"

And now, apparently, questions have started about possible child abuse at KC ... you don't say

Interesting article in BBC Magazine this morning. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34676281

I tried to check but it is not easy to find records of Children in Need spending

The list for London/SE is here downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/pudsey/grants/CiN_Grant_Funded_London_South_East_England.pdf which I got from this page - I think it's for last year

Thanks wowfudge, a good summary of what we know so far.

One thing I did not know: KC secretly promised the government that it would close the Urban Academy in Southwark - its centre for over-16s. They pledged to close down their Bristol operation too. These two decisions would dramatically change the nature of Kids Company - and even very senior staff were not told.

Makes it seem even more like a CB vanity project and less like a normal charity.

This is pretty devastating evidence from Harriet Sergeant on KC

data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/public-administration-and-constitutional-affairs-committee/kids-company/written/24321.html