The chairman of the BBC’s Children in Need charity has resigned following reports that she objected to a grant awarded to an LGBT youth charity, whose former boss had been implicated in a child abuse scandal.

Rosie Millard, an author and broadcaster, accused the charity of “institutional failure” in her resignation letter shared with the Times.

Millard objected to £466,000 being awarded to LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS), a charity which supports young gay and transgender people.

Its former chief James Rennie was convicted in 2009 of child sexual abuse. The funding from Children In Need began seven months later, when the charity had new management in place.

BBC News has not seen Millard’s resignation letter.

A BBC spokesman said: “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of all children and young people.

“When allegations were made in relation to LGBT Youth Scotland, their funding was immediately suspended with the full support of the board and a review commenced. To do this thoroughly and fairly, the review took three months and culminated in the decision to withdraw the funding.”

Rennie, who had been chief executive of HBTYS from 2003 to 2008 and is also a former SNP councillor, was jailed in 2009 after being exposed as a member of a pedophile ring.

He was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a three-month-old child and conspiring to gain access to children in order to abuse them. He was ordered to serve a minimum of 13 years, later reduced to eight on appeal.

Children in Need suspended donations to the charity in May 2024, after Millard says she brought his case to their attention. It pulled funding about three months later after a review.

But Millard, who used to be an arts correspondent for BBC News, criticized Children in Need for what she said was a lack of due diligence.

She accused chief executive Simon Antrobus of failing to respond “with the necessary level of seriousness” and hesitating to take action.

She claimed that he eventually cut funding to the charity only out of fear of negative publicity.

BBC News has contacted Millard for comment.

Antrobus, who has been chief executive of Children In Need since 2016 and previously held senior positions at Parkinson’s UK and Scope, has not commented publicly.

Another man, who contributed to school guidance compiled by LGBT Youth Scotland, was convicted this year of sharing indecent images of children including some of newborn babies.

Andrew Easton was a young person who attended services with LGBT Youth Scotland in the 2000s, and as a result contributed to a 2010 guide for young people about coming out. However, he was never employed by the charity.

He pleaded guilty in September to communicating online with someone he believed to be a child, downloading indecent images of children and distributing indecent images of children.

He was sentenced to a community order, ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, placed on the sex offenders’ register for three years and told to attend a sex offenders’ programme.

In 2022, two men said they were groomed at HBTYS around the time Rennie was executive director. In response, LGBTYS suspended an employee and referred them to the police.

A BBC spokesman said: “The Children in Need board supports the actions taken by the chief executive and senior management team and stands by the decisions that are made.

“Rosie retained the board’s support throughout. In the wake of her departure, to ensure that all lessons learned are captured, the trustees have launched a review of working practices between the board and the executive in which Rosie has kindly agreed to participate.”

LGBTYS chief executive Mhairi Crawford said Millard’s resignation letter “demonstrates the ideologically driven nature of her attacks on our organisation”.

Crawford said: “We are pleased to see confirmation that Children in Need’s investigations into the work of LGBT Youth Scotland found nothing to report.

“Time and time again, those with anti-inclusion motives point to historical allegations in an attempt to destroy our reputation. Allegations which have been investigated and accepted by Police Scotland and which have been shown to have no connection to our work.”

Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, praised Millard on Wednesday for her “significant impact on countless children”. Children in Need raised more than £39 million in its annual broadcast on Friday.