Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements
Charity Commission statement on Kids Company Judgment
The collapse of Kids Company was a matter of significant public, media and Parliamentary interest at the time, with ramifications for the wider charitable sector, notably on public trust and confidence in charities.
Today’s High Court judgment has upheld our finding of mismanagement of the charity’s finances and has confirmed that it was based on “ample evidence”. Furthermore, the judgment firmly rejected allegations we predetermined the outcome of the inquiry, stating the threshold for this was “not met in this case by a wide margin”.
The court has confirmed it was entirely reasonable for the Commission to have drawn independent regulatory conclusions on the demise of Kids Company, based on all the evidence available, in keeping with the role Parliament has set us.
The judgment notes we took care in the inquiry report to point out areas in which the charity’s trustees were acting within their duties and responsibilities, and where we found external criticism of the charity was unfounded. Our inquiry report stated clearly there was “no dishonesty, bad faith or inappropriate personal gain in the operation of the charity”.
While the court has dismissed the challenge on all but two grounds, and is clear that the overall findings of our report were not ‘irrational’, we acknowledge its finding that we made important errors in relation to two paragraphs of the report and will act to remedy this.
ENDS
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