The Insolvency Service is to take legal action against all the former directors of the collapsed charity Kids Company and its former chief executive, who now face the prospect of disqualification from running or controlling companies for up to six years
A spokesperson for the Insolvency Service said: ‘We can confirm that the Insolvency Service has written to the former directors of Keeping Kids Company informing them that the business secretary intends to bring proceedings to have them disqualified from running or controlling companies for periods of between two-and-a-half and six years.
Kids Company, originally known as Keeping Kids Company, closed abruptly in July 2015, after experiencing severe cashflow problems following the withdrawal of £3m of government funding. It had received some £43m of grants over 15 years.
Management and governance practices at the charity have been heavily criticised in select committee reports, with the public accounts committee describing it as ‘a failed and expensive experiment’, and the Insolvency Service launched an investigation.
The subsequent proceedings will name all nine former directors: Sunetra Atkinson, Erica Bolton, Richard Handover, Vincent O’Brien, Francesca Robinson, Jane Tyler, Andrew Webster and Alan Yentob.
Yentob, who resigned as creative director of the BBC following the charity’s collapse but continues to run an independent television production company, is the best known of the group, but several hold senior positions which could be impacted by a director disqualification.
Bolton runs an international public relations company for arts and culture; Handover is a former chairman and CEO of W H Smith; O’Brien is a fund manager; Robinson is executive chair of recruitment specialist the PSD Group; Tyler is a former partner at law firm Macfarlanes; and Webster was a former senior executive with AstraZeneca and is now head of HR for luxury travel retailer DFS Group.
The former chief executive Camila Batmanghelidjh was not formally a director at the time the charity collapsed. However the proceedings will allege that she acted as a de facto director and should therefore also be disqualified from running or controlling other companies.
The Insolvency Service statement concluded: ‘As this matter will now be tested in the court it is not appropriate to comment further.’
