In 2015, almost ten years ago, a charity in the UK called Kids Company was shut down. It was covered heavily by the media. The Charity Commission of England and Wales subsequently published an Inquiry Report in 2022, which found numerous concerns with the way that the charity operated. The founder of the charity brought a court case against the Charity Commission, disputing the findings. The High Court, in a recent judgement, delivered on May 20, 2025, disagreed with 2 of the grounds suggested by the Charity Commission in paragraphs 45 and 51 of the inquiry report. In other words, the High Court found “ample evidence” of mismanagement but disputed two of the many grounds.
There is an interesting discussion as to costs and why the court was not ordering them here. As well, you can see a redlined version of the inquiry report (starting on page 3) showing all the changes, which I think are minor in comparison to the whole report. The inquiry report provides a lot of useful information for those interested in governance and compliance.
For me, perhaps more interesting than the judgment is the media coverage surrounding the court case. The Guardian had an article which apparently was titled “Report into Kids Company Irrational, Unfair and One-sided Court Rules.” That is certainly how some would want the court decision to be viewed. The Guardian subsequently changed the name of the article to “Watchdog’s Kids Company report was ‘one-sided’, but judge upholds key findings”, Yes, quite a different headline. It is a 50-page judgment, and often the media is either rushing to judgement rather than actually carefully thinking through the implications of a case, or has editors coming up with titles that are not reflective of the story.