Charity Kids Co. director asked to step down.

[avinalarf]

OK peeps.....so we've had a bit of banter.....me included......but what do we actually know.
Ms Battty is an easy target ......a large lady who dresses like a lunatic but that doesn't make her a villain.
Could it be that she started off with good intentions and that the admin side of the charity just run away from her abilities ?
Maybe others got involved and were up to no good and she was out of her depth ?
As usual the government in the form of the Charities Commision has a lot to answer for.

[HarryW]

What I don't get is;
why is the government throwing £3m at a charity, it isn't a government department...
said charidee needs to pay a £800k wages bill immediately as its already late paying its staff, why?
Why if funny lady only has to step aside for it to continue is it completely closing, is it a petulant response...
How much money does it raise as a charidee and where is the money it now, it can't have dried up overnight?
I see working for a charidee as being done as a life's vocation, why is the wage bill and outgoings so high?

[BlackLabel]

Wow Camilla B is blaming "civil servants, ministers and the media" for the collapse of the charity.

Oh and I wonder if the PM would be this easy going and careless if it was his personal £3 million he was giving away.

beeb said:

One source said Mr Cameron was "mesmerised" by Ms Batmanghelidjh and over-ruled concerns raised during funding talks, he added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33793070

Edited by BlackLabel on Wednesday 5th August 19:52

[Vaud]

The non-execs have a lot of questions to answer in my view.

[BoRED S2upid]

RedTrident said:

Did the government really pay £3 million in one instalment to KC? And then a decision was taken to spend £800k of this money on wages when the money was ring fenced for other things?

Could the £800k not have come from another pot of money?

I have been involved in 3rd sector organisations all of my working life and find all of this very bizarre. To pay out that much money from a pot that was meant for something else would have to be authorised at so many different levels and would end the careers of everyone involved. There's more going on here, I'm certain.

I find it hard to believe they would pay out 3mill in one go to any organisation of this size.

[bitchstewie]

Obviously not good if you're staff and haven't been payed but the government give them £3M and they pay the wage bill? WTF is that all about?!

[carinaman]

BoRED S2upid said:

I find it hard to believe they would pay out 3mill in one go to any organisation of this size.

I'm not. Isn't part of the 'Big Society' about having services that could or should be provided by the government provided by external charities, with the government part funding the charities?

How much independence do these 'charities' have, how much are they under control of the govt. due to being partially funded by the govt.?

What is the relationship between the MoD and Help for Heroes? Shouldn't the govt. be caring about those that have been harmed in war zones sent there by this government rather than by public donations?

Link about someone selling their house and donating the proceeds to Kids Company:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9437932/the-tr...

Edited by carinaman on Wednesday 5th August 20:00

[ChemicalChaos]

55palfers said:

hornetrider said:

Looks like the charity Chairman, Alan Yentob, is being accused of a conflict of interest over the Beeb's reporting of the matter. The articles alledges he was trying to influence Newsnight recently, as well as using his BBC email account to persuade the govt to let them off 600k of tax.


.

FOR
Does anyone think that is perhaps as serious as punching a producer?

Edited by 55palfers on Tuesday 4th August 11:26

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3184493/Alan-Yentob-tried-halt-BBC-probe-kids-charity-Corporation-s-330-000-year-creative-director-phoned-Newsnight-staff-hours-aired-damning-report-Kids-Company.html


Of cours, the beeb would never sack a fellow luvvie, no matter how inappropriately they've acted

[carinaman]

Yentob is on the board of Trustees of Kids Company. Yentob having any influence of the BBC coverage of Kids Company would seem a clear conflict of interest. Does the BBC belong to the licence fee payers or Yentob?

Common Purpose.

Common Purpose is like Freemasons for Luvvies?

Edited by carinaman on Wednesday 5th August 20:06

[mph1977]

carinaman said:

BoRED S2upid said:

I find it hard to believe they would pay out 3mill in one go to any organisation of this size.

I'm not. Isn't part of the 'Big Society' about having services that could or should be provided by the government provided by external charities, with the government part funding the charities?

How much independence do these 'charities' have, how much are they under control of the govt. due to being partially funded by the govt.?

What is the relationship between the MoD and Help for Heroes? Shouldn't the govt. be caring about those that have been harmed in war zones sent there by this government rather than by public donations?

Link about someone selling their house and donating the proceeds to Kids Company:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9437932/the-tr...

Edited by carinaman on Wednesday 5th August 20:00

the use of charities to provide services historically provided by LAs or the NHS is nothing new ... it wasn;t new 14 years iago when i first did work on that basis as a Volunteer

arguably the 'big socirety' is/ was. should be about dismantling the ideologically correct indoctrination centres that New labour put in place to replace existing commercial / volunteer provision and as part of the wider debate over dreducing the size of the state looking at other LA provided services that could be run in a different way ( libraries for instance) .

[scenario8]

RedTrident said:

Did the government really pay £3 million in one instalment to KC? And then a decision was taken to spend £800k of this money on wages when the money was ring fenced for other things?

Could the £800k not have come from another pot of money?

I have been involved in 3rd sector organisations all of my working life and find all of this very bizarre. To pay out that much money from a pot that was meant for something else would have to be authorised at so many different levels and would end the careers of everyone involved. There's more going on here, I'm certain.

Quite. I know a bit about the third sector and from the outside this debacle is very odd indeed.

Where are the board and the non execs in this? Wtf is Number 10 doing getting so involved? I hope it all comes out in the wash shortly but I fear this story is yet another nail in the coffin when it comes to the trust the public have in larger charities and the third sector generally. There does seem to be a narrative developing against charities in the media and the public arena.

[kev1974]

Don't understand why the latest £3m bailout was made in one instalment. After all the charity was already in "special measures". Where was the plan for how it would be used, and why wasn't it released bit by bit as third party's invoices came due?

[anonymous-user]

hornetrider said:

Oh dear. Hearing on the Beeb today that despite an injection of three million in govt funds last week that it'll be closing down it's services tonight. Ministers frantically trying to get the cash back, however it's not been spent on what it was awarded for.

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

So if the funds were not intended for salaries then shouldn't somebody have checked that the company was actually solvent before throwing £3m at them?

[Cupramax]

Symbolica said:

So if the funds were not intended for salaries then shouldn't somebody have checked that the company was actually solvent before throwing £3m at them?

Dont be stupid, this is the same idiots that just sold some of the RBS shares we hold at a loss.

[RedTrident]

kev1974 said:

Don't understand why the latest £3m bailout was made in one instalment. After all the charity was already in "special measures". Where was the plan for how it would be used, and why wasn't it released bit by bit as third party's invoices came due?

I just can't see how it could have been paid in one lump. It's just not how this world works. And if it was it would have circumnavigated the processes that government departments would ordinarily follow.

And if it was a bailout, and it is our money after all, I'd want to know what the money was intended for and the safeguarding the government would have insisted on to make sure it was spent appropriately, particularly when the government went public over bad management in KC.

There's more to come out here. This just doesn't add up.

[s3fella]

The Con is on!

Sadly any eg unite charities out there will suffer as a result.

Although I'm of the opinion that such organisations are few and far between.

[scenario8]

s3fella said:

The Con is on!

Sadly any eg unite charities out there will suffer as a result.

Although I'm of the opinion that such organisations are few and far between.

I beg your pardon?

[anonymous-user]

Just noticed another quite detailed article appeared in the Spectator yesterday evening:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/milesgoslett/2015/08/...

[GloverMart]

The woman who runs the Bristol centres, (Esther ??) was talking about this on our local news tonight. She said that she was abroad due to family reasons but had arranged for her house to go on the market as she wouldn't be able to afford to run it any more.

Is it me or is that a little bit hasty? Effectively made redundant today, wouldn't you at least try to do a deal with your mortgage company to stay where you are? So much of this seems so over-the-top dramatic, somewhat apt given the woman at the top.

[BlackLabel]

carinaman said:

Link about someone selling their house and donating the proceeds to Kids Company:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9437932/the-tr...

From that link:

article said:

The cash has rolled in to Kids Company. It has received more than £25 million from the government, and another £4.25 million has just been agreed.

+ the recent £3 million.