Two former chief executives of the collapsed adoption and fostering charity BAAF have called for the Charity Commission and Parliament to launch inquiries into failures by its board.

A statement by Felicity Collier and Barbara Hutchinson said there is now “overwhelming evidence” for regulatory inquiries.

However some of their claims have been disputed by administator Smith and Williamson.

The two chief executives say the charity’s former chair Anthony Douglas has declined to give administrators the names of organisations he approached with a view to partnering with BAAF.

Collier claims the information emerged at a creditors' meeting with administrator Smith and Williamson on October 9 - although Matthew Dunham, partner at Smith and Williamson denies the claim. 

Collier said the meeting also revealed that BAAF’s trustees had “dismissed” the possibility of approaching potential partner organisations, like Barnardo’s.

She said the administrator revealed the names of nine organisations that they recommended the board approach during their appointment as board advisors in June.

She also claims that Douglas dismissed the recommendations on the basis that they did not have the same government influence as Coram – which later took on some of BAAF’s services after its collapse.

But Dunham told Civil Society News today: "We have been in touch with Douglas and he has promised to send over the list of organisations contacted shortly." 

Dunham also disputes claims that Douglas prevented the board from approaching alternative organisations recommended by the administrator.

"We generated a list of organisations and recommended that any organisation we wanted to partner with would have to be acceptable to the Department for Education."

Dunham also told Civil Society News that despite the closure of BAAF and loss of 73 jobs, "almost all services were saved" through its partnership with Coram.

'Tragedy'

In a statement yesterday, Collier said: “Given that the takeover of some of BAAF's functions by Coram resulted in 73 redundancies and the demise of BAAF as the major UK wide organisation promoting best practice in adoption and fostering, this failure by the chair and trustees to explore more options for saving the organisation through acquiring emergency funding (including an appeal to charitable funders or to governments), or through identifying a partner organisation that would take over more of BAAFs work , is very grave indeed .

“The loss of the BAAF teams in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and the regional teams in Leeds, Birmingham and Newcastle, all of whom were meeting their budgeted income targets and providing a full programme of training and consultancy in addition to running local forums for exchanging ideas and best practice, is a tragedy.”

The charity was declared insolvent on 31 July with the loss of 73 jobs. Some of the charity's services were transferred to the charity Coram – with the BAAF’s London-based functions transferring to the nearby Coram Campus, according to a Coram spokeswoman.

A report by the administrator last month blamed the charity's collapse on cost overruns and poor financial controls.

But a letter sent by Collier to the administrator shortly after the report's publication points to key areas missing from the report. 

They include the "failure of BAAF trustees, the chief executive and/or the administrator" to "consult with current and recent senior BAAF staff"; "to prioritise production of monthly management accounts"; "to consult with BAAF’s auditors"; "to give proper consideration to special/urgent fundraising initiatives during the run up to insolvency"; "to identify and evaluate a range of potential partners and then to negotiate an appropriate transfer deal"; and "to continue trading after a decision had been made in principle to go into administration". 

Collier told the administrator: "I have not been convinced by the case you have made for taking BAAF into administration and trust that the points made will be reflected in your final report." 

Civil Society News contacted a spokeswoman for Douglas but he declined to  comment.