Share Sounds. from Thought for the Week related to Financial Education - 15-18

Dame Meg Hillier is Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which has published its 25-page report into Child Trust Funds following the recent National Audit Office analysis. HMRC is asked to follow a series of recommendations to link young adults to their unclaimed accounts, including getting account providers to take more action. Young adults from disadvantaged households are most in need of the c. £2,000 waiting to be claimed in their Child Trust but an estimated one million 18-20 year-olds are not claiming their money because they don't know anything about it. As we said on 22nd May, don't waste the Child Trust Fund harvest! Background music: The Plan's Working - Cooper Cannell Image by Richard Townshend

“The [Child Trust Fund] scheme has been closed to new entrants for over 12 years. In this time HMRC has been focusing resources on evaluating and improving existing schemes. We will continue to keep the need to evaluate old schemes under review.” So said Andrew Griffith MP, Economic Secretary to HM Treasury in reply to a parliamentary question from John Ashworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. But this is not an 'old scheme' — there is currently over £1.7 billion sitting in mature accounts belonging to over 900,000 mainly low-income young adults throughout the UK who don't know anything about their good fortune! Their Child Trust Fund harvest is seeing too little action at present: but it's not too late to get it sorted, and the current focus from the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee will certainly help. Background music: 'Hopeful Freedom' by Asher Fulero