AIBU to think Kids Company was actually just an arrangement that mainly funded the lifestyles of a group of Camilla B's pals?

[LuluJakey1]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3267799/Scadal-hit-charity-Kids-Company-facing-new-questions-giving-hundreds-thousands-pounds-tax-free-employees.html

Chauffeur paid £40,000 + and his two children at private schools paid for by KC. His sister CB's seamstress full-time and the lawyer -both roles paid for by KC

I just do not know how CB could honestly justify any of this behaviour and not see it is wrong.

I didn't know that. I know from friends who have/had cancer, they rated the support from Maggie's Centre.

Macmillan pay for the first 3 years - if they didn't then the posts might not exist at all. This is all done with the agreement of local health boards etc.

I know some of you are not fans of the RSPCA but its Scottish equivalent the SSPCA does fantastic work as does Redwings Horse and Donkey rescue.

So far as KC for the amount of money spent on so few children they could have fed the children at The Ritz and shopped at Harrods.

I work in a charity dealing with children and I do know as a fact of hundreds of desperate families and young people who were helped by KC, and not by being given cash handouts either. We also worked with them on occasion as we do more specialist work of a type they were unable to do.

I'm not defending in any way what undoubtedly went wrong with KC, but hasn't this topic been done to death on MN? TBH, it seems to me that people are just looking for reasons to be judgmental and are refusing to acknowledge the good actually done by KC. I wonder how many of the self-righteous are doing anything to help the vulnerable themselves?

Gruntled, I agree.
Many people sit by and do nothing and critcise those who actually do.
Why KC thought it sensible to try to put money through to staff as if they were clients I don't know - it sounds a naive assumption that would mean more money to help children (which is true if it hadn't been found out) but ultimately (if true) was a stupid decision as it resulted in KC's demise.

Why KC thought it sensible to try to put money through to staff as if they were clients I don't know - it sounds a naive assumption that would mean more money to help children (which is true if it hadn't been found out) but ultimately (if true) was a stupid decision as it resulted in KC's demise.

Are you serious? The only explanation is to avoid paying income tax and National insurance.

yes, but they were making no profits. So the result of not paying the tax and NI is that they have more money to spend on children. That would be the motivation. It is misguided but it is morally good.

It sounds like it started and was run with good intentions and then it all went to camilas head and became too big for her to manage.
If she hadn't been so privileged and articulate I am sure the whole thing would have unravelled before

Gruntled

I disagree with your post there for a number of reasons, which isn't to say I don't recognise your own sincerity behind it.

I have followed this case with interest and unfortunately I haven't read one testimony such as yours which confirms that children were indeed a) hungry and b) fed. The only thing that comes up time and time again is the wads of cash given to teenagers, which is dangerous at best.

I would also respectfully disagree that the topic has been done to death. As someone who has spent most of her life miles north of the Watford Gap, I hadn't heard of KC prior to all this. Given that millions of pounds of taxpayers money (on top of donations from well meaning members of the public) I would say there needs to be an open and frank discussion about it.

Why were London teens deemed worthy when those living in Manchester, Glasgow, Middlesbrough, were not?

Why was this charity supported by DC when others were not?

It isn't enough to smile feebly and say 'oh well, they tried to help' when dealing with the sort of sums that they were given. Coldplay alone donated 9 million. 9 million!!

I think it stinks, to be honest. And I do give to charity, and I would be upset if I had given to this charity only for this to have subsequently emerged.

I think the woman who sold her house was - unusual - but just the same, if you had done so and discovered this - would you not want answers?

And that is one of the negatives of charities. People living in one place will get a service, and nothing somewhere else. It is the same will illnesses. If you are dying with cancer you will often get a lot of charitable support. If you are dying from a different illness, you may get very little.

yes, but they were making no profits. So the result of not paying the tax and NI is that they have more money to spend on children. That would be the motivation. It is misguided but it is morally good

Now this comment really is a joke - surely?

A charity is not meant to make profits. Many charities set up trading companies to permit the generation of income and make a profit.

Paying income tax and employee and employer's NI is not an activity which you can opt out of.

"So they can have more money to spend on the children " how do you work that one out? If I earn £50,000 per year but decide I'm going to "opt out" of paying PAYE and NI the person who has more money is me.

"It is morally good" only if you think fraud and theft is morally good.

KC was clearly a dodgy enterprise in many ways, but it's really weird to dismiss first hand testimony like Gruntled's of families and young people being helped. It would be astonishing given the number of well-intentioned staff at KC if there weren't quite a few families and young people whose lives were made better by KC.

The problem is that the numbers of people being helped was much lower than headline figures claimed, that quite a lot of the help seems to have been rather misguided, and that there was serious financial mismanagement and malfeasance. Suggesting that no one was helped ever is extremely peculiar and not supported by anything I've seen.

I'm not ignoring it, Irene, but very genuinely, it is the first time I have seen anything which nods towards it occuring.

Tough and Leaving It's absolutely astonishing there have been no people coming forward to say how they were helped.

Well, of course anyone can say anything on the Internet, but if we've given provisional credence to the various anonymous posters recounting bad practice at KC on previous threads then we should give provisional credence to an anonymous poster saying 'well, they did some good things'. (There was someone else on the previous thread talking about a complicated asylum case a caseworker at KC had managed to sort out, IIRC).

There seem to have been lots of able and committed staff who joined KC, were really shocked by the bad practice they found and left, many of whom have now spoken to the media. Is it too much to believe that some of these people did some decent work at KC in the time they were there? I just don't believe that every one of the stories of KC successes told over the years is 100% untrue.

It just showsd how gullible mumsnet p osters are (see their immediate assumption anyone ever accused for child molestation must be guitly even without a shred of evidence) that they would mostly all assume KC did not good work at all. That's a ludicrous suggestion. KC helped loads of children. Plenty of Londoners worked with them with children every day of the week never mind things like their Christmas lunches for all those London children with no meal on Christmas day.

It is very easy for people to see things in black and white all the time - entire establishment involved with sex with children or KC did not good work. In fact life is shades of grey.

The lessons are stick to what you're good at - if you're a details person do details, if you're good at raising money do that, if you're good one on one with children do that. Make sure your advisers and boards are competent and take responsibility and stop you doing things that aren't allowed.

You get this with small businesses all the time which grow. The original start up people are not often that good at managing bigger things and it is only where they hire the right people to grow that they manage ok.

And for those feeling London was unfairly given aid for chidlren we do have a huge number of disadvantaged children. Don't we have more people within the M25 than the whole of Scotland put together for a start.

By all means found your own regional charities. No one is stopping any poster on here doing that. Not enough women do.

There are lots of regional charities doing this kind of work. They do not get large grants from Central Government.

Intradental - the Osca blog that started this off is an example, and I think there were more quotes from disillusioned ex-staff in the Sunday Times coverage (behind paywall). Also some comments on the previous MN threads from posters claiming to be former staff, but of course we can't be sure these posters are telling the truth.

Accounts of the KC Christmas parties may have uncritically swallowed inflated numbers supplied by KC, but I can't believe that everyone they spoke to was a fraud.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/dec/25/kids-ompany-christmas-party-the-oval