(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.

Yes and weren't two of his (Richard Hanover) children employed at KC?

Talkin ... ah, I see. Excuse me for a moment while I just despair a bit.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's a bit too convenient for insurance companies to suddenly get an entirely new market like that. My pragmatic side says that it's probably down to general imbecility and lack of knowledge on the part of the DoE.

But it really isn't good enough to let something like this occur. It really isn't.

Boffin ... to my mind, the Conservative anti-LA position has its roots in the '70s because LA debt used to fall into the PSBR and contributed to it in a substantial way. Reining LA spending in was extremely difficult, spending priorities could be very silly, and some LAs spent with abandon back then. I can't remember examples specifically, but it was pretty ridiculous for some LAs -- they had bought stupid things that had nothing to do with their remit or the benefit of their electorate.

One of my friends has been a Labour councillor in a very deprived area of London since the '90s, and they were still trying to unpick the LAs assets, purchased prior to '79, in the early '00s. He found that the LA actually owned a row of seaside cottages on the East Coast; they had been completely forgotten about and hadn't been used for over twenty-five years.

I have to admit that I am somewhat biased about local government because I have also close relatives who are local councillors, and I know what goes on. There's not a lot of oversight in some respects (local papers no longer attend council meetings and report on local government, so the general public doesn't know what goes on) and there are a lot of people with vested interests and big egos; both on staff, and in cabinet.

As I said earlier, it can be very "Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" and that goes for both Labour, Tory and LibDem-held councils.

It's a tangled web indeed

Richard Handover is cited in an article from 1997 about 10 people you are glad you weren't. His appointment as Chair of WHS didn't exactly inspire colleagues with confidence.

www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/410802/UK-Ten-people-youre-glad-werent-in-1997/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

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Jeremy Hardie

Chairman of WH Smith

WH Smith used to be one of the UK's strongest High Street brands: no longer. The group's star faded as it diversified and its core chain lost ground to other retailers such as the supermarkets which moved in on its traditional turf: bookselling and newspapers. Last year, 200 years of unbroken profitability ended when provisions and disposals resulted in a £194-million loss. It was against this less-than-halcyon backdrop that Hardie's troubleshooting chief executive Bill Cockburn announced he was quitting to join BT. Hardie then attracted flak over Cockburn's successor, Richard Handover, an internal promotion who was seen by many as somewhat second rate. Smith's management spent the summer denying the break-up rumours that were flying around only to have them come true when Tim Waterstone, founder of the eponymous chain of bookshops, forced their hand. The company has now begun meeting institutional investors to devise a restructuring package to boost its lacklustre shareholder value. In October, Hardie announced that he would leave next year; the reason, according to reports in the press, is that he is sick of being sniped at. And if this is the reason, it is firmly rooted in reality. At the AGM four days later, the board faced a barrage of criticism, with Hardie himself coming in for protracted personal heckling.

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Just wanted to say that there are some frighteningly intelligent and knowledgeable people on this thread -Boffin you rock! I know there has been an agreement not to derail too much off the KC topic but could one of you wise ones explain to me in layperson's terms what exactly academies are? Despite having 2 secondary school age DCs, I still don't entirely understand how it all works and the arguments for/against

Kate Swann criticises Handover in 2004.

www.theguardian.com/business/2004/apr/25/theobserver.observerbusiness8

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She admits that her damning verdict on the business is by implication a searing indictment of former chief executive Richard Handover. 'It looks like last year the profits fell off a cliff. The reality is it is not like that. The underlying picture has been like that for years.' She says sales have stagnated while margins have been squeezed by competitors (the supermarkets and slicker rivals such as Borders and Ottakers) while costs have soared.

The fact that Handover is still at WH Smith as chairman makes such public criticism all the more potent. Swann acknowledges this. 'The chairman would say it was his responsibility but it is not all dreadful. He has been very helpful. He has sorted out the sale of the US business and is doing the [Asia-Pacific] sale. He has given me a completely free hand. He has not once said "You cannot do that, Kate".'

She says that WH Smith is at the 'long list' stage of recruiting Handover's replacement, with interviews booked.

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I rock!

An academy is a form of independent school for which tuition fees are not paid by parents, and which represents a conversion of an existing school.

A Free School is a form of independent school for which tuition fees are not paid by parents, and which represents a newly established school.

Both are funded centrally from Whitehall.
Both are not obliged to follow the national curriculum.
Both are not obliged to hire qualified teachers, or pay according to the Teachers Pay and Conditions regulations.
Both may not be run commercially for profit (although as you have seen in some of my links, they manage to sometimes)
Both are supposed to follow the admissions code.

Handover was the man who bought the UK's equivalent to Amazon, called bookshop.co.uk, for £9 million in 1997-ish and basically was unable to do anything with it, so it died.

An interesting article from The Telegraph a couple of weeks ago which supports the notion I and others on the thread have about CB 'creating myths' and then attempting to make them real, and the dangers of this when it is young people she does this with.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11806249/Kids-Company-recruited-troubled-teenagers-for-brain-scans.html

It is also again about her unethical and unregulated behaviours where she and her beliefs over-ride what her own professional academic community is saying is dangerous practice.

Academies and free schools are not at all independent schools, it wrong to call them that. They are maintained by grants from central government rather than local authorities. Free schools are essentially Academies once they are open. I totally believe your local experience of them in an area where extra places are not needed, but for areas in the south East in dire need of places, free schools have plugged the gaps as authorities generally cannot open a school in the same scenario. Academy chains opening free schools receive the pre-opening grant and importantly receive a percentage fee of the schools budget for perpetuity, can be up to 5-8%, regardless of their actual time spent with the school. This is the way they make their money. Free schools set up by parent bodies (very rare unfortunately due to the overwhelming workload needed) can opt not to take this and just work on a voluntary basis, this means these schools don't have to give away the same percentage to anyone else.

And in addition, please don't tarnish all free schools with the same brush, there are some great ones out there that are "normal" and children are doing brilliantly at them.

Lulu That article is really interesting and reminds me a bit of the whole Andrew Wakefield debacle ie He decided that MMR causes autism and was going to prove it even if it wasn't true. CB is so convinced that abuse/neglect 'causes brain damage' that she'll keep spouting on about it even when her 'research' doesn't actually show this - at least, not in the simplistic way that she claims.
There is some evidence that abuse or neglect in childhood can arrest emotional development and people with a diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, many of whom have had very difficult childhoods, have major difficulties with regulating their impulses and emotions in the same way that young children do. However, they can be helped but it takes time and usually a lot of therapy. And very clear boundaries are essential. Clients will try to push these boundaries in the same way that small children will but, even if unconsciously, they actually want and need them in order to feel safe and contained.
Giving people the implicit message that they can't help their behaviour because they have brain damage is very wrong.

MrsJamim, I wasn't making that up, I was using the legal definition of academies and free schools. They are a form of independent school as the Government sees it, as were City Technology Colleges.

That telegraph article is incredible. If a parent was sending their child for brain scans and insisting on tests which medical experts considered unnecessary, serious questions would be asked.

And how many times have we read in the various articles posted that CB has waved MRI scans about as 'proof' of her theories.

That telegraph article is incredible. If a parent was sending their child for brain scans

What's fascinating is that it was supposedly a study to uncover brain damage (ie, the children were suspected of mental incapacity) caused by catastrophically poor parenting (ie, the parents were suspected of being feckless, abusive, generally dysfunctional).

And yet UCL were happy to take consent from those parents for unnecessary MRI scans that could have no therapeutic consequence.

Precisely who was giving informed and competent consent, again? The children suspected of having occult brain damage? Or the parents, suspected of being dysfunctional and uncaring? What were the children and parents told was the purpose of the scans?

In any event, it seems remarkable that children who are so damaged by whatever it is that KC think damages them to the point that they are incapable of living a normal life could make and turn up for an MRI appointment and then lie still for the extended and noisy process.

And we might also point out that "we haven't got enough MRI capacity, children will die of cancer and it's all the government's fault" is a pretty common NHS meme, so it's interesting that UCL had enough spare capacity that it could tit around doing a vanity study with no clear outcomes. Didn't they have any real work to do?

Very good points, Pneumo.

Story here about artists donating works to KC in July, to keep it afloat. Damien Hurst and KC: what an ideal pairing - flashy, empty, with an amazing gift for parting the wealthy from large wodges of cash.

Interesting to see that the next KC accounts are due at the end of this month.

Pneumo
UCL have quite a reputation for funded research that they would do well to try to get rid of.

Unhelpful in terms of ethics perhaps that UCL have given CB an Honorary Fellowship.

This is the thread from 3 July 2015 immediately after KC and CB's problems became public with 361 messages which is like a pre-quel to these 2 threads - it's in Chat so sadly will disappear forever in about 30 days.

It makes a fascinating read in the light of everything that has emerged over the last two months.

Camila-Batmangelidjh-stepping-down

We need a stroking chin emoticon.

That telegraph article is fascinating. The way CB seemed desperate to prove neglect caused actual brain malfunction, for want of a better word.

The thing is that I would say she has a point with this: "it is vital to understand that for people mistreated in childhood, violence can become 'almost instinctual.'"

However, in the majority of cases, this surely is down to children/young adults who are modelling behaviour they have observed from authority figures in their childhoods.

When it comes to actual acquired brain damage through neglect, in a Romanian orphanage manner or outside of violent events that have physically caused brain damage in a child, the percentage must be extremely small in a British context.

And this is all rather interesting in terms of CB's approach to these issues, which seemed to be very laissez-faire when faced with bad behaviour. Which ever way you look at it, either through the modelling route or CB's perspectives, doing nothing about bad behaviour when faced with it was possibly the worst thing to do.

In fact, when it comes to ignoring violent acts, handing over envelopes of cash, and not reporting crimes committed on the KC premises, you could argue that this actually encouraged more bad behaviour from KC clients.

The thing is that I would say she has a point with this: "it is vital to understand that for people mistreated in childhood, violence can become 'almost instinctual.'"

That's pretty much the racism of low expectations.