Committee

music by Tom Deering, book and lyrics by Hadley Fraser and Josie Rourke

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 12 August 2017

Committee, or, to give it its full title, 'The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall's Relationship with Kids Company', is an eighty-minute sung account of one day's evidence given to the PACA Committee, edited from the published transcript of the enquiry, directed by Adam Penford. Five MPs assisted by two clerks question Alan Yentob, played by Omar Ebrahim, the chairman of the trustees of Kids Company, and  Camila Batmanghelidjh, played by Sandra Marvin, the chief executive and founder of the charity.

The charity was set up in the 1990s to help disadvantaged and neglected children in poverty, and its CEO was a dominant and charismatic personality who was able for many years to garner sufficient funding for its somewhat controversial methodologies. However by 2015 serious concerns were surfacing about its financial viability and probity, especially as it was in receipt of several million pounds' worth of government funding, which was still being given despite official warnings that it was inappropriate to do so. Eventually the Chief Executive was dismissed, but this gesture was too late to save the charity, and at very short notice it was closed, its staff suddenly unemployed, and many young people and their families who had become dependent on it left unsupported.

Media coverage (and outrage) centred upon claims that some clients had been given many thousands of pounds in cash over the years in which they were supported; allegations were made that in some cases drug habits were being maintained while in others mortgages were being paid off. It is true that weekly cash handouts were part of the program. Questions were also raised about thresholds for higher managerial responsibility, relationships between the trustees and the management, and the interactions between Kids Company and other bodies (especially local government). Though these questions were inevitably raised here, they were not wholly relevant since the Committee was not competent to examine individual cases, except insofar as they exemplified the general policies and procedures of the charity.

After Kids Company was closed, the PACA Committee sought to clarify what had gone wrong; the play concentrates on the day in which Alan Yentob and Camila Batmanghelidjh gave evidence. She was passionate about the work of the charity and incensed that the interests of the children were betrayed by its closure; he was amazed that a venture which had such high profile support could be subjected to intrusive questioning. But the committee was working from the point of view that money provided by government had to be used as specified and that any charity should abide by the guidelines set forth for proper financial accountability. 

A merely spoken presentation of the transcript would have been tough to follow; brilliantly, the musical setting allowed the audience to concentrate on salient points and to appreciate the increasing tensions and frustrations of the participants - both the committee members and the two giving evidence. All too often they were at cross purposes, the MPs relying on the formalities of committee hearings and doggedly refusing to be deflected by the rhetorical excesses of the two before them. On their side, Alan Yentob displayed an alarmingly naive (or perhaps just condescending) belief that reciting the names of the great and good was sufficient to outweigh any minor quibbles about internal procedures, while Camila Batmanghelidjh seemed completely unable to grasp the point of the questions she was being asked. Inevitably her position seemed more vulnerable when she side-stepped questions about her professional qualifications as a psychotherapist; and her accounts of internal procedures and her understanding of the strings attached to government funding seemed completely inadequate. Equally damning, it would seem, was her inability to answer directly why there was a huge discrepancy between the claimed caseload of the charity and the number of cases referred to local authorities after its demise. 

It was a fascinating clash of personalities and styles of presentation, but it did not seem to me that the two giving evidence showed a real awareness of the constraints that should have been imposed on them by the allocation of public funds to their in many ways laudable endeavours.