The collapse of Kids Company: lessons for charity trustees, professional firms, the Charity Commission, and Whitehall Contents
Annex A
Kids Company’s Board of Trustees
Although PACAC took oral evidence only from Mr Yentob, the Chair of Kids Company’s Board of Trustees, all trustees are jointly responsible for the charity they govern. As outlined in the Charity Commission’s guidance to trustees, “A chair can only make decisions in accordance with any provision in the governing document or delegated authority agreed by the trustees, and should notify the other trustees of any decisions made”. 264
At the time of Kids Company’s collapse in August 2015, the trustee board comprised:
- Chair - Alan Yentob, Creative Director BBC
- Deputy Chair - Richard Handover, previously Chairman and CEO of WH Smith
- Francesca Robinson, Executive Chairman of PSD Group, responsible for strategy and leadership. (Annual turnover £30m and 400 staff.) She led a successful management buyout in 2010
- Jane Tyler, senior lawyer and partner in Macfarlane’s law firm
- Erica Bolton, founding partner/Director, Bolton & Quinn, international PR consultancy
- Andrew Webster, formally Vice President with responsibility for human resources at Astrazeneca
- Sunetra Atkinson, philanthropist. Spent several days a month working pro bono for Kids Company, organising and funding the warehouse that stored and distributed donated goods for the Poverty Busting Programme
© Parliamentary copyright 2015
Prepared 28 January 2016