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Clamidya Batty-Telly,can we have our money back ?





vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
27,867
Not a good few days for the party of responsible spending and parsimony ...£3M to a dodgy charity and £1Billion loss on flogging off RBS shares cheap to George Osborne's City chums.
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,673
Location Location
Stroppily closes the whole shebang down at the very first sign of some uncomfortable questions, blaming the government and media. A whole raft of emotive statements such as

"By the time you broadcast, unfortunately the charity's closed and we've had to abandon a lot of children."
"That's it, it's the end of Kids Company and actually a bunch of rumour-mongering civil servants, ill-spirited ministers and the media, on the back of a range of rumours, put the nail in this organisation and shut it."


I don't buy it. If there was no truth in the "rumour-mongering" then she'd have kept KC open and let a full inquiry run its course. Something doesn't smell right, and that giant walking fruit salad should still be brought to account on exactly whats been going on under her watch.
 




Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,673
Location Location
The company I work for is a sponsor of Kids Company, and has been for years. We were shown a promotional video a couple of years ago fronted by the fruity, detailing the great work they do (and it IS great work, no question). We were invited to donate a % of our salary each month to KC deducted at source, a proportion of which would then be matched by the government. I didn't partake, but I would think anyone who did will be revising this arrangement before the next payday.
 






Brian Fantana

Well-known member
Oct 8, 2006
7,202
In the field
It seems like they dished out a fair bit of money to kids and young people in cash, rather than through covering rental or utility costs. This money could then be spent on anything, i.e luxury goods, alcohol, drugs etc.
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,673
Location Location
It seems like they dished out a fair bit of money to kids and young people in cash, rather than through covering rental or utility costs. This money could then be spent on anything, i.e luxury goods, alcohol, drugs etc.

Well, that and a vast number of employees many of whom were claiming various expenses, which (as mentioned by one of the now redundant women in the Finance team who would oversee the claims) said "we never really knew what a lot of them did".
 






Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,323
Uffern
The reporting of this has been pretty shoddy. What's being forgotten is that Kids Company looked after kids that had generally been abandoned by social services as they were too difficult to manage. Mrs Gwylan was a youth worker in Southwark for many years and had lots of dealings with KC - she says that they did wonders, even if their administration was (to put it mildly) haphazard.

But that's the rub. As this article points out, good administration costs money - and people moan about contributing to charities where a certain percentage goes on admin (even though that costs less).

The demise of Kids Company doesn't mean the problem children vanish: they will either be cared for my social services (which will cost a lot more than KC ) or simply abandoned ... so, a few months later we'll hear stories of children being raped by gangs or killed by their relatives, or something equally grim
 


Thunder Bolt

Ordinary Supporter
The reporting of this has been pretty shoddy. What's being forgotten is that Kids Company looked after kids that had generally been abandoned by social services as they were too difficult to manage. Mrs Gwylan was a youth worker in Southwark for many years and had lots of dealings with KC - she says that they did wonders, even if their administration was (to put it mildly) haphazard.

But that's the rub. As this article points out, good administration costs money - and people moan about contributing to charities where a certain percentage goes on admin (even though that costs less).

The demise of Kids Company doesn't mean the problem children vanish: they will either be cared for my social services (which will cost a lot more than KC ) or simply abandoned ... so, a few months later we'll hear stories of children being raped by gangs or killed by their relatives, or something equally grim

That's the shame of it. Rather than just closing it down completely, an administrator should be placed so that the business side gets organised/ straightened, but the good work that this organisation has done, continues.
It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water, and the media won't care.
 




glasfryn

cleaning up cat sick
Nov 29, 2005
20,261
somewhere in Eastbourne
Not a good few days for the party of responsible spending and parsimony ...£3M to a dodgy charity and £1Billion loss on flogging off RBS shares cheap to George Osborne's City chums.

Gideon never could add up
hope he is the next tory leader
 


BLOCK F

Well-known member
Feb 26, 2009
6,317
That's the shame of it. Rather than just closing it down completely, an administrator should be placed so that the business side gets organised/ straightened, but the good work that this organisation has done, continues.
It's like throwing the baby out with the bath water, and the media won't care.

What do you mean the media won't care. It is nothing to do with the media and, in fact, the comments that I have read and heard in the 'demon' media have been very balanced. The fact remains that huge sums of money were donated to this charity and due to, let us say, inadequate controls, the whole thing has collapsed, thereby affecting the very people whom the charity was set up to help.
I understand that the last payment of £3 million made by the Government was to allow the organisation to overhaul its management.This is did not do, but spent £800,000 on paying staff and then pretty soon after closed its doors.
Let us see what develops and comes out of the inevitable enquiry before having a pop at the media. It is cases like this that make the public cynical about giving to charity with the result that many others may suffer from the fallout.
 






Man of Harveys

Well-known member
Jul 9, 2003
18,731
Brighton, UK
The reporting of this has been pretty shoddy. What's being forgotten is that Kids Company looked after kids that had generally been abandoned by social services as they were too difficult to manage.

Shouldn't it be the other way round though?

Shouldn't state-funded social services be dealing with more difficult cases rather than just shoveling them off to some dodgy charity run by a raging self-publicist? It seems to make more sense for a charity to deal with preventing them from falling too far off the ladder in the first place. Something's gone a bit wrong there all round.
 


Feb 23, 2009
22,840
Brighton factually.....
So in short they did not have proper finance control, then the government gave them a further 3 million to do this which in turn they did not do instead they spent the money who actually knows how and then closed the doors not allowing proper checks. Is it just me or does this sound like FIFA slightly and people covering their tracks...

Could be wrong just does not add up somewhere.
 


Goldstone1976

We Got Calde in!!
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patreon
Apr 30, 2013
13,765
Herts
About two years ago, I planned to make a sizeable personal gift to KC. After the Due Diligence I did at the time I decided not to make the gift and instead gave the donation to MSF. I'm not the least bit surprised to see the latest developments at KC. Such a shame.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,337
Faversham
I was treasurer of a charity for 12 years. There are very clear rules about accounting and payments (if you know where to look for them in all the bumf). However it is extremely easy to flout them. I never let anyone get away with anything, but my successor is having to deal with committee members urging spending on 'hospitality', covering first class air fares for invited speakers, the hiring of private cars to car people about, etc., and is finding it hard not to cave in to pressure.

I was also on the executive of another bigger charity (let's call it 'Kevin'), that at one point, was budgeting a quarter of a million quid every year for the 'Kevin annual meeting'. This included provision of free registration and lunches for Kevin members. I saw hundreds of luch bags left untaken a few years ago, at a cost of several thousand quid.

Charities can seek sponsorship for specific activities. Thus, the small charity for which I was treasurer had small meetings (100 attendees) that made a small profit due to clever seeking of sponsorship from Industry interested in the activities of the charity (medical research). By contrast, 'Kevin' obtained no sponsorship, despite having a full time employed meetings manager.

The difference between the two charities is my small one was brilliantly run by volunteers, none of whom were paid, whereas 'Kevin' was badly run, by rather self-regarding folk, with 10 full time staff including a CEO on about 90 grand a year. The latter could 'afford' to be profligate becuase of an income of over a million a year from Kevin publishing activities.

So, in the present case my guess is that the charity had more money than they initially needed (over 20 million from government over several years, was it not?), so 'expanded', employed staff, didn't manage spending properly, and had leadership with a sense of entitlement and naivety that failed to see the crash before it came. All rather sad.

Conclusion? I think the rules governing charities are too complex and too easy to disregard. If a charity gets a lawyer to write its constitution it won't understand what it means - it should be written by clever lay folk. And the treasurer needs to be a brutal ******* (like I was) prepared to have a stand up row and overrule even the CEO if needs be. A treasurer cannot be sacked from the executive of a charity just because the CEO can't get his/her way, and if the CEO tries the treasurer has the phone number of the charity commision . . . .

I heard yesterday an interview with someone at the Kids charity who dealt with accounts mention that she was very unhappy about 'spending'.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that the charity has been squandering money on inappropriate things, with insufficient oversight by its treasurer, probably mesmerised by the florid CEO.
 




edna krabappel

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 7, 2003
47,228
I can't be the only person who can't see beyond the "Batman" at the start of her surname?
 


Goldstone1976

We Got Calde in!!
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patreon
Apr 30, 2013
13,765
Herts
I was treasurer of a charity for 12 years. There are very clear rules about accounting and payments (if you know where to look for them in all the bumf). However it is extremely easy to flout them. I never let anyone get away with anything, but my successor is having to deal with committee members urging spending on 'hospitality', covering first class air fares for invited speakers, the hiring of private cars to car people about, etc., and is finding it hard not to cave in to pressure.

I was also on the executive of another bigger charity (let's call it 'Kevin'), that at one point, was budgeting a quarter of a million quid every year for the 'Kevin annual meeting'. This included provision of free registration and lunches for Kevin members. I saw hundreds of luch bags left untaken a few years ago, at a cost of several thousand quid.

Charities can seek sponsorship for specific activities. Thus, the small charity for which I was treasurer had small meetings (100 attendees) that made a small profit due to clever seeking of sponsorship from Industry interested in the activities of the charity (medical research). By contrast, 'Kevin' obtained no sponsorship, despite having a full time employed meetings manager.

The difference between the two charities is my small one was brilliantly run by volunteers, none of whom were paid, whereas 'Kevin' was badly run, by rather self-regarding folk, with 10 full time staff including a CEO on about 90 grand a year. The latter could 'afford' to be profligate becuase of an income of over a million a year from Kevin publishing activities.

So, in the present case my guess is that the charity had more money than they initially needed (over 20 million from government over several years, was it not?), so 'expanded', employed staff, didn't manage spending properly, and had leadership with a sense of entitlement and naivety that failed to see the crash before it came. All rather sad.

Conclusion? I think the rules governing charities are too complex and too easy to disregard. If a charity gets a lawyer to write its constitution it won't understand what it means - it should be written by clever lay folk. And the treasurer needs to be a brutal ******* (like I was) prepared to have a stand up row and overrule even the CEO if needs be. A treasurer cannot be sacked from the executive of a charity just because the CEO can't get his/her way, and if the CEO tries the treasurer has the phone number of the charity commision . . . .

I heard yesterday an interview with someone at the Kids charity who dealt with accounts mention that she was very unhappy about 'spending'.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that the charity has been squandering money on inappropriate things, with insufficient oversight by its treasurer, probably mesmerised by the florid CEO.

You psychic or something? Ah - not psychic; just experienced.

Are you involved in any charities atm?
 



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