The Spectator magazine has published an attack on the activities of Kids Company, saying that it is “a drain on donations that might otherwise go to better causes” and calling for a review of its activities.
An article which will appear in the February 14 magazine, written by investigative journalist Miles Goslett, claims the children's charity would “benefit from a review of its operations and controls”.
Kids Company has an income of £23m in the year to December 2013, but today said its future funding "is still not clear" and that it could have to close without further funding from the government.
The Spectator claims that civil servants in the Department for Education tried to cut funding to the charity, only to be personally overruled by Prime Minister David Cameron.
And it reports claims that the charity mistreated Joan Woolard, a donor who sold her house in order to donate £200,000 to the charity, but later became concerned about its activities.
It says Woolard was never told how her money was spent, and that she came to lose trust in the organisation. When she complained the charity said it was concerned about her mental health.
It also reports some of the concerns from a former member of staff, Genevieve Maitland Hudson, who published a separate blog yesterday, in which she said the working environment at Kids Company was extremely poor.
"I have never, before or since, felt more unsafe, less cared-for and more destabilised at work," she wrote. "The workforce really is as diverse as the charity suggests. But they were not collectively a wholly welcoming bunch, nor was their conception of professional boundaries of the kind you might find in ordinary working environments.
"Intense personal disclosure was normal. Violent altercations between staff members were not unknown."
She also claimed that Kids Company has failed to produce evidence of its effectiveness.
In response Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and chief executive of Kids Company, said that the article in The Spectator was “entirely inaccurate and untrue” and that there was evidence to prove it.
She questioned the “erratic” behaviour of Woolard. She said the charity had approached the Charity Commission “about the interaction we had with Joan Woolard” and was told that “there was no case to answer”.
She said the article had been done "in an unfair way", that it could damage delicate funding negotiations with the government, and that its timing was therefore "interesting".
“As we approach the general election, there will be political footballing,” she said. “It is disappointing that a children’s charity had to be used in this way without being given the opportunity to demonstrate how misleading the material is.
“Kids Company is regularly audited independently. Our outputs and outcomes and the numbers of people we help are evidenced rigorously and we report regularly to all our funders, which we do with pleasure.”
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