Spectator letters: Camila Batmanghelidjh defends Kids Company

In defence of Kids Company

Sir: Your piece ‘The problem with Kids Company’ (14 February) bears an important message: charities need to be transparent and accountable. That’s why Kids Company was independently audited twice last year alone, and our financial structures and functioning put to the test. We also have auditors working alongside us, verifying our outputs and outcomes in relation to our government grant.

All such audits have been positive. Several pieces of independent research were carried out capturing our clinical work and our staff wellbeing — two of these found our staff satisfaction and productivity to be above 90 per cent. Some 600 staff, almost 10,000 volunteers and 500 clinical students worked at Kids Company last year.

It wouldn’t be surprising if in stressful circumstances working with troubled children and a lack of money there were a handful of disgruntled individuals with things to say to journalists. I can take all this on my fat chin, so charmingly depicted by your artist! However it is another matter as to whether Kids Company’s dedicated staff, volunteers, over 77,000 generous donors and the children we help deserve to be treated in such way.
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Kids Company, London SE5

Objectionable measures

Sir: Rod Liddle sets the bar formidably high in his amusing reading of the Guardian’s linguistic idiocies (14 February), but that’s no reason not to try to clear it. Years ago I used the phrase ‘gentlemen’s measures’ in a column for the paper — an archaic term, perhaps, but not an offensive one. Yet it was unacceptable to a section editor, who told me it was demeaning to women. It went in as ‘large drinks’! However, if you refer, as one of the paper’s many well-bred lady columnists did, to ‘little icky Christianity’, nobody seems offended at all.