Camila Batmanghelidjh has claimed that the government promised £20m worth of funding to Kids Company in July 2014.

In an interview with the Guardian, Batmanghelidjh said she had met with Oliver Letwin last summer who she claims said: “He turns around and says, ‘You need some proper funding, you should have £20m, I’m going to find it’.”

Letwin is the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and is now in overall charge of the Cabinet Office. He denies that he promised to find £20m for Kids Company, telling the Independent that: “It’s not the case that I have ever made any promise to give some huge sum of money to Kids Company. I think it probably arises from a misunderstanding on her part.”

A winding up petition has been submitted to the High Court. The case is due to be heard on Thursday morning.

The Charity Commission has issued an updated statement explaining that it cannot provide further information about its involvement with Kids Company until the court has appointed a liquidator.

Food kitchen

Batmanghelidjh has also revealed that she intends to open a food kitchen for up to 3,000 young people this week.

She told the Times: “Children have been ringing me up saying they are hungry, so we are trying to salvage something from the mess that Westminster created.”

According to Batmanghelidjh 50 former Kids Company staff have volunteered to run Kids Dining Room, which will open on Wednesday.

A restaurant is providing bags of vegetables and tinned food.

Further allegations in the Mail

Elsewhere the Daily Mail claimed that the charity rented a £5,000-a-month mansion with a swimming pool.

The paper claims that the children were not able to use the pool but that Batmanghelidjh did.

She told the Mail that she paid rent to use the pool and that the house was used as a space for clients with “very disturbed minds”.