Kids Company let down by its trustees

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/11/kids-company-let-down-by-its-trustees

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The closure of Kids Company was a tragedy waiting to happen and trustees should take full responsibility for this (Kids Company chiefs ignored cash warnings, 7 August). The fact that Alan Yentob was chair for 18 years suggests that there were no fixed terms of office for trustees so no new blood was being recruited to the trustee board. Usually in this situation trustees get complacent.

Had Kids Company reflected recommended best practice in governance, its closure might have been avoided. Most charities are well managed with regular board effectiveness reviews and skills audits to ensure that trustees have the skills required to lead the charity to achieve its mission. If this is not the case, then new trustees should be recruited to a skills specification that will ensure its continued success.

Hopefully, the Charity Commission will strengthen its regulatory role.Olga JohnsonAssociate director, Trustees Unlimited

• As chair of trustees of a small voluntary association struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment, I am amazed at the behaviour of the trustees of Kids Company. Their first responsibility, surely, is to the survival of the organisation, the only protection available to its vulnerable clients and those employed to serve them. This demands that they hold sufficient reserves to meet all exigencies and consequently rein in the ambitions of even the most charismatic of leaders. If the organisation is incapable of meeting all the demands of those without adequate social and emotional support, then it must resort to campaigning, rather than indulging in short-term bountiful behaviour, which, as we see, has far more extreme consequences than those provided by fiduciary discipline.Diana NeslenLondon

• So Kids Company is criticised and forced to the wall because it refused to build up any cash reserves. Yet the small charity my partner works for – focusing on people with learning disabilities and mental health issues – is unable to attract funding because it does have cash reserves through being prudent, but is constantly told: “Spend your reserves and then we’ll think about it.” As they say: Go figure!Prof Paul KleimanManchester

• When the private providers of essential services fail for any reasons, be it incompetence, financial mismanagement or even outright fraud the services do not cease to be provided. The money is found and the questions of blame and future safeguards are then dealt with.

Leaving aside any argument about public/private provision for the moment, this is surely how it should be.

How then can we as a society countenance the closure, in similar problematic circumstances, of an organisation previously acknowledged to have been providing an excellent service helping vulnerable, neglected, abandoned and even abused children and young people? Do we not deem such a service essential?Derek Leon EltonTodmorden, West Yorkshire

• Your editorial (6 August) highlighted the key role of trustees in the proper management of charities but that really isn’t the critical problem.

If Kids Company had operated overseas it would long since have started describing itself as an NGO. Organisations that domestically describe themselves as charities are often, in effect, delivery arms of government development policies. There are good reasons for this but it is not without drawbacks.

Kids Company was similar. It had effectively replaced local authority delivery of a statutory duty – hence the government grants – but without any of the (boring but important) oversight, scrutiny and fiduciary and fiscal care. There are many other charities who have made similar pacts with the devil.

In the light of the tragic demise of this charity we need much greater clarity over which charities are, in effect, arms of government and either a revised Charity Commission mandate to oversee them or a new form of supervision entirely. Alternatively, the state could go back to delivering statutory duties itself – wouldn’t that be a revolution.Simon DigginsRickmansworth, Hertfordshire