TOPIC:

I am endeavoring to ascertain who originated the idea of the Camps.

I read somewhere that the idea came from the British Officer Brabant to Kitchener.
I think I read it in one of Denys Reitz" books. However reading now Com Viljoen's Chapter in his book (chapter 32 I think) on the execution of Meyer de Kok for treason, it is stated that he, Meyer de Kok, was the one who told the British if you took away the families of the Boers, they would surrender.

Any information in this regard?

They certainly were not a British invention, the "idea" had already been used and the press reported in the Spanish American War, that civilians were being "concentrated" into camps.

Boerresearch
Rodney Atwood, writing in "Roberts and Kitchener in South Africa" (ISBN 971-1-84884-483-4) comments that Kitchener's ruthless policies, after the failure of the Middleburg talks, were "prefigured" by the scorched earth policies in the American Civil War, by similar policies used during the Indian Wars and during conflicts in Cuba and the Philippines - and the same tactics were used in anti-guerilla conflicts later in the 20th Century. I recall reading that the Spanish fighting against guerillas in the Philippines called the camps "reconcentrado camps". Reading Ch.10 of Chris Ash's "Kruger Kommandos and KAK" (ISBN 978-1-920143-99-2) might give you another view of the Concentration Camps in South Africa. Certainly, the large numbers of lives lost in the Concentration Camps must be deplored. As a tactic of isolating (or attempting to isolate) guerillas from a sympathetic population, many Commanders since have employed the very same policy.
Good luck with your research.
IL.

Both the camps and the "scorched" earth policy were actually started by Lord Robert's in 1900 and not Kitchener, who was originally merely Roberts Chief of Staff until he returned home, moreover, to the best of my knowledge, the concentration of civilians into camps actually began on Cuba in 1896.
Once the enemies capitals had been taken and the guerrilla war phase began the War Office had absolutely no answer whatsoever, it was a new war for a new century.
Their response was to build block house lines to guard the all important railways which supplied the army, but, this did nothing to stop the enemies sabotage, so the next step was simply to remove their source of food and supply, take those thirty thousand or so farms out by burning them, place their inhabitants into the care of the District Commissioners.
The fact that the Boers own families had assisted them meant that they had exposed themselves in a way which would not just be overlooked by the War Office, the war was clearly not going to come to an end and that must have seemed really obvious at the time.
The problem was that those District Commissioners had no experience at doing this task that they had been given, they had no idea about how to organise a camp, critically, the water supply, sanitation and so on, at the end of the day, you are dealing with a large number of people, all in a very small space.
Importantly, it has to be remembered that these Boers, had, in effect, been living in isolation for one hundred years or so, the War Office could not be trusted to look after their own men, let alone the enemies families, as soon as you exposed them, unintentionally, to disease, the blue touch paper was well and truly lit and it proved to be very tragic indeed.

I certainly would not try to justify the policies either way because I was not around one hundred and sixteen years ago, but, I have to say that I find it all very unpalatable, I doubt if the gold under the Rand was really worth all the suffering, but the three particular men that I'd like to discuss this with, Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner and Joseph Chamberlain are all long gone.