Corporation veteran embroiled in charity scandal says media coverage is ‘proving a serious distraction’ – but he will keep his presenting role

Alan Yentob is to stand down from his senior management role at the BBC, saying the media coverage of the Kids Company scandal has become a “serious distraction”.

Yentob, who is the corporation’s creative director, will leave the £183,000-a-year role later this month. His resignation comes weeks before an influential Commons committee is expected to heavily criticise his chairmanship of Kids Company.

“The BBC is going through particularly challenging times and I have come to believe that the speculation about Kids Company and the media coverage revolving around my role is proving a serious distraction,” he said.

MPs recently heard evidence that Yentob, the chair of trustees at the charity for more than a decade, may have misled them when he mounted a strong defence of the way it had been governed and run. Yentob repeatedly denied that there had been any mismanagement of Kids Company or failure of governance when giving evidence to the public administration and constitutional affairs committee.

Giving an example of how well Kids Company was run, he said the charity was used by a partner at the accountancy firm PFK Littlejohn as a case study of good practice. The PFK Littlejohn partner had decided to use Kids Company as an example after investigating the charity’s governance and financial controls, the committee heard.

But when the PFK Littlejohn partner Alastair Duke gave evidence, which was published last week, he disputed this. “I did not use Kids Company as a case study,” he said.

David Jones, Conservative MP for Clwyd West, asked him: “So what Mr Yentob told this committee was wrong?”

Duke responded: “I have never had a conversation with Mr Yentob and I do not recognise that comment … We did not use and have not used Kids Company as a case study.”

Asked where Yentob could have got such an idea from, Duke replied: “That is a question to ask him.”

The committee has finished taking evidence on Kids Company and is expected to publish its report in the new year. It is likely to be highly critical of the way Yentob and other trustees carried out their legal duties of governance.

Yentob said on Thursday that he will contine to front BBC1’s Imagine series, for which he also receives a six-figure salary, and be involved in programme making and TV production at the corporation.



“I have spoken to Tony Hall [director general of the BBC] and told him that I think it best that I step down from my senior management role as creative director at the end of this year and focus on programme making and TV production – including of course the Imagine series,” he said.

He will continue as chairman of BBC Films, an unpaid role, and will not be receiving any form of payoff for standing down as creative director.



“I love the BBC and will continue to do everything I can to ensure that it thrives and fulfils the great expectations we all have of it,” he said.



Yentob had previously said he would “not remotely consider” resigning over allegations he tried to influence the corporation’s coverage of the scandal-hit Kids Company. He has been accused of a conflict of interest after making a phone call to Newsnight before a report on Kids Company, as well as accompanying the charity’s chief executive, Camila Batmanghelidjh, to an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme.

Hall reiterated that the corporation does not believe that Yentob abused his position by influencing the BBC’s news coverage of the charity.

“For the record, BBC News considered whether Alan Yentob had influenced the BBC’s journalism on the reporting of Kids Company,” said Hall. “They concluded that he did not. Despite that, I understand his reasons for stepping down as creative director. He has been thinking about this carefully for some time and we have discussed it privately on a number of occasions.”

Yentob had been known as the BBC’s “Mr Fixit”, helping steer the corporation through crises such as the Lord McAlpine and Jimmy Savile scandals. But the continuing fallout from the Kids Company scandal has made Yentob a liability at a time when it is facing tough negotiations with government over a renewal of its royal charter.

Kids Company was put into receivership in the summer shortly after the Cabinet Office had approved a new government grant of £3m. The committee of MPs heard evidence from three accountants who reviewed or audited the books. They heard that one client of the charity received £73,000 from Kids Company, and also heard details of £4,700 being spent on clothing and designer shoes worth £305 for clients.

In evidence last month – during one of the final committee sessions – Duke was questioned about his financial report on the charity, which revealed Kids Company had claimed accommodation costs from the government of more than £420,000 for a year, even though the property involved had been a gift.

“They are claiming that they have incurred this expenditure and they have not actually incurred this expenditure,” said Oliver Dowden, Conservative MP for Hertsmere. “It surely does reflect in some way on the governance of the charity that they claim such a large amount when that cost did not essentially exist.”



In private the committee has been told that trustees – none of whom have been identified – had loaned money to the charity on various occasions. In one case government money had been used to pay back a trustee who has not been publicly identified.

Yentob has been at the BBC since 1968 and has been creative director for a decade. He has presented almost two dozen seasons of Imagine, building up a £6m-plus pension pot.

Hall said of his former colleague: “Alan is a towering figure in television, the arts, and a creative force for good for Britain. He has served the BBC with distinction in a number of different executive roles – all of which have been characterised by his energy, creativity and commitment to public service. He has an extraordinary roll call of achievement.”

The BBC Trust said on Thursday that it would not launch an investigation into allegations that Yentob tried to influence coverage of Kids Company on Newsnight, World at One and the Today programme.

The trust said it had listened to the specific programmes Yentob is accused of attempting to influence and found no evidence that the output had been affected. In addition, the trust said that now Yentob has stood down it would “not be proportionate, appropriate or cost effective” to launch an investigation.

By giving up his executive position Yentob will be removed from the BBC’s list of senior managers who are forced to publish their expenses and gifts and hospitality at each quarter. Yentob’s expenses claims have been a rich source of fodder for the media. His most recent claim includes £1,500 on 75 cabs, prompting him to once retort that he could not do his job if he did not fly business class.

In 2002, the BBC paid for an official fancy-dress party at Yentob’s Tudor mansion in Somerset during the Glastonbury festival. In 2004, Yentob was cleared of any wrongdoing following an investigation into his expense claims, but received a rap on the knuckles for taking “insufficient care over some aspects of his affairs”.

• This article was amended on 11 December 2015. An earlier version said Alan Yentob had been the chair of trustees at Kids Company for 20 years.