Why does it take a TV Drama to unlock an injustice?
Although in a completely different league from the sub-postmasters’ situation, it was hard not to notice the parallels for disadvantaged young adults who are not getting access to £2 billion worth of funds in their individual names because they don’t know anything about their Child Trust Fund accounts.
The unwillingness of both Government and account providers apart from NatWest to make real efforts to raise the profile is an injustice which has affected over one million young adults, mainly from low-income families, who were issued with HMRC-allocated accounts.
It may not be a miscarriage of justice in the legal sense, but many of the ‘cover-up’ allegations in the Panorama programme which followed the ITV drama are very similar to HM Treasury intransigence on this issue: for example, I recall Treasury Minister John Glen saying to me, as we walked away from the March 2019 debate in Westminster Hall, ‘There are no lost Child Trust Funds’, and Andrew Griffith referred to Child Trust Funds as an ‘old scheme’ in a parliamentary answer last year. Please also refer to the Public Accounts Committee last May, the video of which is hosted on The Share Foundation’s YouTube channel.
During the autumn I helped with background information for another docu-drama, and became aware of the vital role that they have in bringing these situations to life; that’s been proved beyond doubt by the ITV docu-drama on sub-postmasters. With a new act of parliament now being prepared for primary legislation in order to correct this injustice, that seems like quite a sledgehammer in order to crack a series of failures in corporate management, auditing and law. For example, surely it's not beyond the wit of The Law Society to monitor such a surge in inappropriate convictions?
The £2 billion challenge of unclaimed adult-owned Child Trust Funds ought to be much easier to resolve.
The Share Foundation runs a substantial campaign to help all young people from disadvantaged/low-income families to become aware of, and to claim, their Child Trust Funds. This campaign started in 2018, and it will continue for as long as there are very large numbers of young adults who are unaware of, and therefore not claiming, their accounts (currently estimated to be 1,175,000, worth over £2 billion in total).
On Tuesday 5th March, they will be hosting a major conference on unclaimed, adult-owned Child Trust Funds at Church House, Westminster in order to raise the profile of this issue. Most of these accounts were allocated by HM Revenue & Customs, and they are lying unclaimed with account providers because their young owners don't know anything about them. The conference is free of charge, being sponsored by NatWest and The Tracing Group.
It's now nearly five years since the issue was highlighted in that Westminster Hall debate initiated by The Share Foundation in March 2019, and it was re-visited by the Public Accounts Committee last May. During this time, The Share Foundation have successfully linked 40,000 young people with their accounts via their search facility, https://findCTF.sharefound.org ; it's reasonable to assume that the Government Gateway has done much the same. But in total, that's still less than 10% of the adult-owned Child Trust Funds remaining unclaimed today: roughly the same proportion as that of post-office sub-postmasters who, thus far, have had their convictions quashed.
Why must it take a TV drama to unlock an injustice like this?
If insufficient action is taken by Government, regulators and account providers as we progress through 2024, a television docu-drama may be the only way to get people to sit up and take notice. It’s not easy to find young people who will volunteer to step forward but, having linked 40,000 young adults with their accounts already, The Share Foundation should be able to find some who are prepared to help tell their stories for all to hear.
Meanwhile, if you feel strongly about this issue, which is denying so many young adults access to their own resources to help them get started in adult life, please come and join us on Tuesday 5th March.
Gavin Oldham OBE
Share Radio