Kids Company

This morning [Thursday 15-Oct-2015] the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has interviewed Alan Yentob and Camila Batmanghelidjh in connection to the collapse of the charity.

It is clear from the start that neither of these two are in a position to answer the questions either because there are poorly prepared or Kids Company was a complete shambles as has been speculated.

The claims that Camila Batmanghelidjh had 35,000 clients is now obviously a gross exaggeration as there is no paperwork available as only 1600 files have been retrieved from Kids Company by the authorities. When asked about this discrepancy Camila Batmanghelidjh said a further 18,000 files were in secure storage, when asked to hand over these files she repeated that they were in secure storage implying that she had no access.

Alan Yentob describes the board as a very professional body that oversaw what Kids Company did, but cannot explain why it collapsed, however at the end of May 2014 there was a government review which advised that there should be no change in the ruling practice of the charity.

From January 2015 the board had to sanction every bill and transaction until the realisation of the collapse and now money laundering and corruption claims loom, this has not been helped by Camila Batmanghelidjh's delusional behaviour towards the authorities who have to clean up the mess.

Alan Yentob says he wish they had restructured earlier than March 2014 when the issue began but it was difficult as everything seem to be working fine, that does not seem to be a reasonable description of a professional trustee board which was put forward by Alan Yentob earlier in the hearing.

Camila Batmanghelidjh is in complete denial about the financial situation of Kids Company which reinforces the view that the CEO was totally incapable of running this organisation.

The committee asked about the staff resignations when the first news of trouble at Kids Company became public, the answer was a pair of blank faces from Alan Yentob and Camila Batmanghelidjh, eventually Alan Yentob replies that there were allegations at that time which have not yet been resolved.

At the summing up when asked about the phenominal sums of money running through the books at Kids Company you [Alan Yentob] had previously said were having trouble keeping reserves, Alan Yentob replies "on come on you have worked with charities, money comes and money goes".