Former board members of the collapsed charity Kids Company – including its founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, and the former BBC chief Alan Yentob – face being banned from serving as company directors, according to reports.
The Insolvency Service has written to lawyers acting for Kids Company’s former board members to warn them that it is minded to pursue disqualification proceedings against them, according to Sky News.
The Insolvency Service, which has powers to seek bans on directorships for individuals of up to 15 years, said: “Our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of Keeping Kids Company and the conduct of the directors is ongoing. It is not appropriate to comment further at this time.”
While disqualification proceedings can be lengthy, if successful they would ultimately force Yentob and the other board members to relinquish any directorships they hold. Yentob is listed at Companies House as a director of a television production business called I Am Curious, which he established last year.
Kids Company collapsed in the summer of 2015, a month after it received a £3m government grant backed by the then prime minister, David Cameron.
Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company staff blamed the collapse on a police investigation into sexual and physical assaults within the charity, which was ultimately dropped. A review by the Charity Commission into the financial collapse is continuing.
Other directors potentially facing a ban include Richard Handover, a former boss of WH Smith, Andrew Webster, a former executive at the drugs company AstraZeneca, and Erica Bolton, an arts publicist.
