Kids company - what a cock up!

[Northernlurker]

So I understand from the bbc that kc got the three million they were waiting for and which was given to support restructuring of the charity and promptly spent 800 grand of it on the months salary bill! What on earth were they thinking? Looks like it's totally done for now.

I don't know a lot about this, but some observations:

1. A few weeks ago I heard CB interviewed on the radio saying she had always intended to stand down after 20 years. Now she seems to be saying the govt forced her out.

1. An annual income of £23m is huge - for that sum of money you'd hope to see some positive, documented outcomes.

1. If they were receiving £5m a year from government, and then handing out money to young people every week, well, that seems like a highly inefficient way of spending our tax money. If the government wants to give money to vulnerable young people, then there are all sorts of ways it could do that without going through a middleman (it's currently removing housing benefit from the under-25s, for example - reinstating that would be a start).

Well possibly Claig but if she wants to be taken seriously then she needs to stop throwing random accusations about and actually start taking some responsibility. Apparently the reason KC failed is because CB's idea was ahead of its time and not because it was badly mismanaged. She believes her own publicity. It's a dangerous thing to do

At least she isn't a PPE-ist eh?

I think CB's response is fairly predictable. I want to hear from Oliver Letwin and Matthew Hancock.

'She believes her own publicity. It's a dangerous thing to do'

Yes, but can you blame her, when all of the great nd the good, the metropolitan elite and the PPEs believed her publicity. I don't blame her, I blame that lot, they are supposed to be in charge of the public's money and are supposed to put it to best use.

'At least she isn't a PPE-ist eh?'

Whenever there is a fiasco involving use of taxpayer money, the first thing that springs to mind is, is a PPE caught up in the mess? So I immediately googled her on wikipedia and found that she is not a PPE. Oliver Letwin isn't, he went to Eton and Cambridge. Matthew Hancock is a PPE.

What's PPE in this context?

Neither Personal Protective Equipment nor Politics Philosophy and Economics quite seem to fit.

Politics Philosophy and Economics is what it is - degree of choice for aspiring politicians.

PPE is Claig's tried & trusted way of derailing a thread. In 10 posts we'll all be discussing UKIP & Jez Corbyn.

I just don't understand where all that money has gone, and what services KC was providing. It obviously was providing something as many people seem to be upset that it's gone, but KC management doesn't seem to have any oversight over what their staff were actually doing all day...

DrDre

Claig is some tedious UKIP-bore who will try and swerve the conversation round to his pet topic (as you will noticed he/she is congenitally incapable of putting up a post that doesn't contain the phrase 'metropolitan/liberal elite.'

Best way to avoid this is to just ignore the fairly transparent attempts to de-rail andjust keep on talking about the issue at hand.

I just don't understand where all that money has gone'

"Most of the money was going on staff salaries"

Quote from BBC Reporter on Radio 4 Today programme. They had about 650 staff.'

Why do you think there are so many 'staffers' and their mates protesting alongside 6 years old kids shouting about the government "Kids Company has helped me so much, come on!" on our TV screens?

'as many people seem to be upset that it's gone'

How many are 'staffers'?

Good idea. This is an interesting thread and it would be shame for it to be derailed with the PPE is the 666 de nos jours rubbish.

'incapable of putting up a post that doesn't contain the phrase 'metropolitan/liberal elite'

I am highlighting where the fault really lies. I am no fan of CB or Kids Company, but she is right to ask why they audited her, praised her, invited her to speak at the Tory Conference, and have now changed tune. The metropolitan elite, as so often, is at fault here for wasting taxpayer money.

I know that transport in London was already up the spout by yesterday evening, but Peckham isn't on the Tube anyhow and very disadvantaged children may well not be away on holiday. So I was surprised at how few were protesting. I'd always assumed they had a fairly local clientele.

Sorry nauticanr it was a joke. I didn't mean to light the touch paper

It's interesting to the Civil Service (chocka blocka with PPEs :D) had huge reservations about the cash and got ministerial direction (so that they couldn't be blamed) to sign it off. I think KC & CB were useful idiots to help cover for Cameron's huge & damaging cuts...outsourcing social services with poor results.

Very good article by common sense Harriet Sargeant, bane of the metropolitan elite.

Because of that particular talent, the charity Camila founded in 1996 has been a peculiar mixture of glamour and deprivation. It’s been where the great and the good, the wealthy and powerful — right up to the Prime Minister himself — have felt able to do their bit for the poor and dispossessed.

Distressing stories of the children the charity helped even appeared in glossy magazines such as House & Garden.

That contradiction is personified in Camila herself. An Iranian who went to an English public school, she presents herself as a radical outsider while at the same time befriending leading members of the political and showbusiness establishments, and raising funds from City institutions.

David Cameron is said to be ‘mesmerised’ by her.
...
disturbing questions must surely be raised about whether those who’ve given so much money really knew where it was all going.

This, remember, is an organisation which received tens of millions from successive governments. Did ministers really scrutinise its practices, or did they simply see a chance to make some political capital by funding such a fashionable cause?
...
From the outset, I was concerned about the numbers of youngsters it actually claimed to be helping.

In the world of charities, numbers matter. Numbers dictate government funding and private donations.

Camila told me 50 or 60 kids turned up every day for lunch and Pilates or yoga classes. But when I visited the centre, I found just one sulky teenager over whom ten staff hovered solicitously. When I asked some youngsters the following week why they came to the centre, they looked surprised. ‘For the money of course,’ one explained. It certainly was not for the education or yoga.

Sulky teenager may very well have been one of the 'staffers' kids, who knows?
...
The majority of the visitors I saw were not ‘exceptionally vulnerable’ children suffering from malnutrition, as one journalist claimed, but adults. Only seven teenage boys were among the 40. In fact, middle-class white visitors outnumbered black teenagers.

These issues surrounding Kids Company raise disturbing questions. Did not one of the great and the good, the pop stars, politicians and journalists think to visit the charity unannounced? Did one of them ever ask a young person for their views?
...
Even the Government was in on it. It continued to lavish money on a charity despite the misgivings of civil servants and some ministers.

When Michael Gove was Education Secretary, he and the then children’s minister Tim Loughton are said to have opposed giving grants to the charity. But Downing Street was in favour of the funding."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186553/A-genius-seducing-rich-Kids-Company-founder-expert-convincing-wealthy-help-vulnerable-youngsters-says-HARRIET-SERGEANT.html

CB made DC look nice and cuddly whilst he was taking benefits & other support away from the most vulnerable.

She was useful cover & fit his "big society" narrative, where the state abdicates responsibility for the poorest & most vulnerable and gets charities to take up the slack.

For once, I agree with you, Alyosha.

Everyone was a winner apart from the public taxpayer, as per usual. The metropolitan elite won (they were 'caring' and even 'sharing' but with the public's money, and the 'staffers' were probably winners too.

'Camila told me 50 or 60 kids turned up every day for lunch and Pilates or yoga classes.'

What is wrong with good old-fashioned press-ups and sit-ups? It's got to be cheaper than employing mertropolitan Pilates instructors on stand-by in case the "self-referring kids" drop by to pick up the envelopes.

I didn't think she came across at all well on r4 this morning.

I think today were tough on her because they were pissed off that Alan yentob showed up for her last interview and stood menacingly in the background.

The senior civil servant who recommended not paying the latest grant but was overridden by ministers must be thanking his lucky stars he's got his arse covered.

It's all very murky and I think there is a lot more to come out.

Watching with interest.

'I didn't think she came across at all well on r4 this morning. '

I think she is quite briliant and ran rings around Humphrys which most of our political class are unable to do.

Humphrys and the BBC team played an interview of one of the charity's "clients" talking about picking up the money in the envelope and then spending it in the shops and on drugs and weed. Humphrys asked her what she had to say about that then, and her brilliant answer was to turn it back on him and say "what do you know about that child?" which is the classic progressive response to which the liberal elite have no answer, and of course Humphrys knew nothing whatsoever about the child's background and CB came out trumps yet again.

CB should run a masterclass on how to outwit the metropolitan elite. Billionaires and 'philanthropists' would be queueing up for lessons in how to do it, although to be honest, it doesn't take much.

She came across as petulant, evasive, arrogant, and willing to use emotional blackmail. I am astonished anyone could have listened to her interview and think "she is doing brilliantly".

'I am astonished anyone could have listened to her interview and think "she is doing brilliantly".'

That is because we all understand things differently. The BBC supposedly intended to grill her, but that was no grilling at all, they never landed anything on her and she turned everything back on reporters, auditors, politicians etc. She was never at a loss for words, never stumped, she outplayed them and came out on top.

Paxman would have been different, but if she carries on like this, she will silence the critics who won't want too many questions asked about why public money was used and where it went.

Claig - wow! :D

Nauticant - I had heard before this that she was extremely difficult to work with, and would not accept criticism of any kind - a key failing for anyone, let alone in such a position as hers...

At least now it is closed we will find out what it is they actually did...

Is there any more information on the claims of abuse - was it more that KC was failing to provide a safe environment by never criticising their "clients" and never turning anyone away?

Humphrys brough up politician Tim Loughon saying je says such and such about Kids Comapny and she again turned it back and said "he never said that to me".

The public is left wondering who over the years that the public paid for it, actually said what to whom, and of course the public knows the answer - the metropolitan elite said next to naff all all along a they handed over public money. On the contrary, they praised CB and invited her to speak to the Tory Conference.

You couldn't make it up. Only in Hollywood metropolitan fantasy land.