A former Kids Company employee has said that the charity was “run by the chief executive as her personal fiefdom”, in written evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry.
The inquiry recently published a number of written submissions from former members of staff and from the charity’s auditors Kingston Smith.
In one anonymous submission, the former employee claimed that “in certain specific areas, ridiculous amounts of money were spent – in my view – wantonly and inappropriately”. They claim to have been asked to accompany a client on a holiday to Ibiza.
They added that: “Decisions about the level of funding of many clients were made solely by the chief executive, with no discussion with relevant funding professionals.”
Staff were being urged to look for other work from May 2015, the submission says, but were assured that the charity was secure until the end of the year.
They add that on 4 August, the day after trustees had made the decision to close the charity, staff were given the impression that “everything was being done to prevent” closure, and that staff found out about the closure from a news item on Radio 4.
The ex-employee also alleges that some staff continued to be paid even after the charity had closed. And they appear to confirm a number of media allegations about how the charity was run that emerged after its collapse, such as giving a 12-year-old £200 for trainers, payments to a client overseas and widespread nepotism.
The submission also claims that people who resigned were paid up to £90,000 to “keep quiet about their concerns”.
Other pieces of written evidence from former employees praised the charity and chief executive Camila Batmanghelidjh’s leadership.
Kingston Smith evidence
The charity’s auditor, Kingston Smith, has also submitted written evidence, which explains that its role was “to identify material misstatements in the financial statements”.
“Our work on the trustees’ annual report and other information included in the financial statements is limited to confirming their consistency with the audited financial statements,” it said.
