THE NATIONAL Audit office says it doesn’t know why the government continued to fund the Kids Company charity ‘year after year’.

I bet I do.

Ignore founder Camila Batmanghelidjh’s ‘verbal ectoplasm’ about the neuro-psychological welfare of kids. Don’t pay too much attention, either, to the leaked emails which show just how precisely she was able to blag £46 million out of governments which were as helpless in her sights as a meerkat facing a cobra.

Just listen to this. "The state gave Kids Company money to do the job it couldn't do,” said Batmanghelidjh.

She was wrong. It gave the money because her charity, which was at one point receiving more public handouts than Barnardos, was doing the job that successive governments WOULDN’T do. Namely getting a grip on the fallout from the toxic culture of guns, gangs, drugs and neglect, which successive governments had allowed to fester in south London, where too many children live without hope or, in many cases, even food.

The Labour governments and the one lead by the Coalition rode Batmanghelidjh’s multi-coloured coattails because it was just so damned easy. ‘You give me the money and I’ll make it all go away,’ she seemed to say.

How handy! No need to hold embarrassing inquiries into just why so many kids were being abjectly failed by a system in which heads of social services – like the useless Sharon Shoesmith of Baby Peter fame – were being paid thousands to preside over the deaths and neglect of children.

No need to puzzle over whether the disgusting Labour decision to relax the cannabis and drink laws had lead to more neglect of children because their idiot parents were zoned out all day on the stuff. No need to inquire into awkward immigration, ‘culture’ and family breakdown issues, why so many schools were failing their pupils, or to wonder if it was just a coincidence that the two boroughs in which Kids Company initially flourished were those which had become a by-word for militant political correctness.

No need, either, to see if the Coalition’s benefit cuts had produced any malign effect. Just make sure that the money which flowed like the River Thames into Kids Company’s bank account kept on coming and it was job done.

Batmanghelidjh effectively bamboozled them for years with her psychobabble. Her aims were absolutely laudable but the way they were executed was not.

It is the job of local authorities to reach out to the children who wound up at Kids Company, to ensure they are fed, clothed, clean and not suffering physical or sexual abuse. And it’s the job of the government to adequately fund the authorities who do this work. Not just hand out cash willy-nilly to some media-savvy oddball, because it ticked their ‘Big Society’ agenda.

SIX times the government were warned that Kids’ Company’s finances were rickety. Six times they totally ignored these warnings, allowing that charity to rinse them for private school fees, cash handouts to kids who spent the money on drugs or expensive trainers, as well as the work they said they were doing.

What’s happened to Kids Company is a tragedy but the biggest tragedy of all is that we even needed them in the first place. Kids Company may have all but disappeared. But the need for them has not.

Vote on tax not a 'crisis'

COULD political commentators stop dripping on about a ‘Constitutional crisis’ just because the House of Lords voted down the tax credit cuts?

The ‘crisis’ isn’t that a load of unelected coffin-dodgers finally did something for the underprivileged; it’s that we don’t actually HAVE a constitution. It’s been that way since God was a lad and until we change it AND abolish the unelected chamber we will ALWAYS suffer undemocratic, second-rate governance.

An inquiry into the inquiry?

THE FACT that the Chilcot Report into the Gulf War won’t be published until next summer is depressing enough. What’s even more depressing is the thought that it can’t be very long before someone decides we need an inquiry into why the inquiry took so long.

Multi-tasking God is definitely a woman 

ACCORDING to the new, female bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, God is “neither ‘he’ nor ‘she’.” Given His requirement to be the ultimate multi-tasker, I’d say God was definitely a She. But I can only ever think of him as looking, sounding and behaving like the character played by Morgan Freeman in the delightful movie, Bruce Almighty.

The joys of having a millionaire father 

ROD Stewart proudly declares that he buys his clothes from Zara and Top Shop yet his son: “Goes down to Ralph Lauren and buys a pair of shoes for 600 bucks.”

Of course he does. Unlike Rod, he’s got a millionaire for a father.

How about a seat first?

THE Department of Transport wants rail passengers to get a full refund if the Wi-fi on their service isn’t working. I bet they do – because if the rail firms had to refund these benighted people for not actually getting a SEAT on their so-called service, they’d be bankrupt by next Tuesday!

Divas are born, not made 

BEYONCE was ‘already a Diva at age 13,’ according to some bloke who claims he was her first love. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But age 13? Very slack of her. I was born complaining about the wallpaper and will die in similar fashion. Divas, you know, are born not made....

Please note: This piece by Faith is an opinion piece and not a news report. You can contact Faith by tweeting @HerFaithness