Save the Children to stop applying for taxpayers’ funding

SAVE the Children is to stop applying for government funding in the wake of allegations of inappropriate behaviour by two former senior employees.

Kevin Watkins, the chief executive of the charity, has volunteered to withdraw temporarily from applying for new funding from the Department for International Development (DFID).

Oxfam has also had its DFID funding suspended after the charity was accused of covering up claims that staff used prostitutes while delivering aid to disaster-stricken Haiti in 2011.

The latest move follows the launch of a Charity Commission inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment allegations against two senior Save the Children executives in 2012 and 2015.

Mr Watkins said it was “heartbreaking that we have to scale back our work”, but he was fully committed to putting in place the changes that were needed. The announcement comes a week after Sir Alan Parker quit his role as the charity’s international chairman.