Government intervention in the internal running of a charity?

I read with much interest this BBC News article titled "Kids Company's Camila Batmanghelidjh asked to step down by government". The full article is available here.

Charities are there to ensure resources (financial, people, services and physical resources) are used effectively to aid the beneficiaries of the charity, in this case children. It must also ensure they are not misappropriated and the long term viability of the organisation is assured. Bring negative publicity certainly impacts its ability today to be effective and threatens its long term viability.

By having funds restricted must be impacting its ability to deliver the much needed services to children and impacts its services it can offer in the future.

Internal governance processes at the charity should be there to ensure sound financial management, ensure stakeholder interests are being appropriately managed and ensure transparency for all.

The BBC article implies many of these duties are not being met by the current governance processes of the Kids Company. Certainly having a high turnover of senior management, questions around its dealings with children in terms of direct cash payments and now the viability of the founder to remain in the chief executive role certainly sounds like key governance failings.

However when does external bodies have the right to interfere with the running of an organisation?

In this chase it is a charity and therefore has wider society obligations and it could be seen that the government is acting in this capacity to protect the wider good and the interests of the charities beneficiaries, the children.

It could be argued that the government is not a key stakeholder in the charity. However it could also be argued that they are a key stakeholder as they have a stake in the organisation through its funding arangements and wider responsibilities to disadvantaged children.

This is a complicated case and is still in play so it will be interesting to see where this goes however it is my view that the Kids Company is having some serious governance issues and needs to review and re-establish its processes. In the interests of the children, the long term viability of the charity and to ensure transparency it may be prudent to effect changes today.

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