Government cuts hit Kids Company and Camila Batmanghelidjh is stepping down

[4kidsandaunicorn]

Here

Does anyone know anymore about this? I've only read the one article.

So she was adviser to DC back in 2006 - is that where the hug a hoodie came from?

Ginger - do you think you got the note because she used it herself!

So she was adviser to DC back in 2006 - is that where the hug a hoodie came from?

Possibly.

A few weeks ago I watched Steve Hilton, another of Dave's shattered gurus that he has sadly had to let go, on Andrew Neil's show The Sunday Politics.

Groovy T-shirt-wearing, sockless Steve was telling the recently retired Director for Labour's Communications Bob Roberts where it all went wrong.

I am very impressed that Roberts didn't rip his heart out and eat it on live TV.

The comments about black women are really shocking.

Not sure if posted yet:

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4487820.ece

egghead - Times is behind a paywall

It's the "they're doing it to silence me on child abuse" story from last week.

It's not worth engaging with all the reasons why this is unhinged. At core, if she's got evidence, the Goddard enquiry launches today and I'm sure they're interested: she should give what she's got to Goddard, post it on the KC website and see what the government's response is.

Yep that's manifestly utter bullshit - she has a high media profile and numerous supporters in the press - if she has evidence in relation to child abuse she should has capacity to mske her 'evidence' known. Also, why has sge sat on this in it til her organisation is under scrutiny.

To use the very real suffering experienced by those who were subjected to historic child abuse as chaff to deflect from her own perceived failings is pretty low, especially from a self styled saviour of abused children.

This is an interesting article: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/society/11717413/Kids-Company-Did-good-PR-mask-deeper-failings.html not least because it includes quotes from some of the kids that KC helps. I think their perspective is quite illuminating (and obviously she's only going to use the ones that support the thrust of the article).

Also, why has sge sat on this in it til her organisation is under scrutiny.

Quite. Keeping evidence of child abuse in your bottom drawer just in case you need it to blackmail pressure the government into continuing funding should be illegal, and I seem to recall KC was pretty noisy the last time "mandatory reporting" was on the table. If she's got evidence, and is an advocate of mandatory reporting, why hasn't she reported it? I expect to hear in the next few days that the DPP is debating what to do with the new evidence than KC has provided.

I expect to hear in the next few days that the DPP is debating what to do with the new evidence than KC has provided.

Don't hold your breath

Grrr.. more revelations (apologies for the DM link)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157634/Mystery-charity-s-unpaid-700-000-tax-bill-Kids-Company-took-money-staff-waived-taxman-Chancellor-Gordon-Brown.html

Kids Company charity in police probe
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33726968

new allegations have surfaced

Well, Newsnight are apparently going to discuss Kids Company's threat to close:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33641889

They got their three million quid only after a ministerial direction, which are vanishingly rare (one a year would be a high rate). It now turns out that they spent a lot of that money, intended for transformation, on payroll, and the Cabinet Office are scrabbling to get it back, hence the threat to close.

Unfortunately not surprising at all that there have been allegations of abuse being 'hushed up.' If you let messed-up, traumatized, drug-using, poorly socialised kids loose on one another (because of unconditional love and your own magic powers meaning none of those boring social rules need apply) then some of them will prey on the others. If you also take on as staff people with past traumas and issues of their own, and don't screen or evaluate them as that would go against all the unconditional love) then some of them are going to be predators, too.

I've just seen this on BBC Breakfast.

It looks to me as if things were very seriously astray, because a grant for services was spent on payroll (which simply should not happen).

And they only got it because, as gemauve points out, ministers formally overruled officials.

They are obviously a financial mess. They should get no more public money IMO.

Well, if they are really going to close this week, they definitely won't (and it then becomes a question of whether they can afford to repay the £3m public money received last week and not spent on the purposes agreed).

But KC appear to be saying that commentary on closure is not helpful.

So I'm rather left wondering if they were bluffing, and are now rather aghast to have been taken at their word.

Depressing...

Looks like they are closing.

I think the trustees have been napping.

BBC article which says CB has confirmed closure wef 1900 today

They got their three million quid only after a ministerial direction, which are vanishingly rare (one a year would be a high rate). It now turns out that they spent a lot of that money, intended for transformation, on payroll, and the Cabinet Office are scrabbling to get it back, hence the threat to close.

Thank goodness austerity is over and we had the money for that.

Auntystella

The grant wasn't meant to be spent on the cost of providing services (which would be mostly made up of salary costs anyway) but was specifically meant to be spent on restructuring/ transforming the charity (presumably to make it more efficient, accountable etc). That's why they are in big trouble for using the grant to pay salaries.

CB is pissing me off now.

Obviously we don't have ALL the facts, but one thing is true - she had a lot of support from the govt in her time, a lot more than most charities enjoy, and now she's refusing to take any responsibility for what went wrong.

I sincerely hope some of the funding given to KC is now directed to other charities and not withdrawn from the sector altogether.

She's on R4 now

What really worries me is what is going to happen in relation to the children they were undoubtedly helping. I've heard vague promises that local authorities will step in, but the fact of the matter is that LAs have had a statutory duty to step in all along and blatantly haven't been doing so, otherwise the charity would have had no function. In a time of massive cuts, does anyone seriously believe they are going to do anything effective now? The truth of the matter is that it is convenient to ignore the vulnerable because they probably won't make a fuss, so that is what LAs do.

A lot of funding will be paid quarterly so the LAs and other donors will now have that funding available to distribute elsewhere.