General CTF recovery campaign

We began our campaign to recover the Child Trust Fund (CTF) scheme in 2018, following its discovery of the huge disconnect affecting about two million out of the six million young people who own these accounts, and the fact that the greatest disconnect impacts the most disadvantaged young people.

Here are the key facts and figures of the scheme: an individual account was opened for almost every child born in the UK between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011: over six million accounts. 1.8 million of these were opened by HM Revenue & Customs and allocated to one of 14 ‘Revenue-Allocated’ account providers* because the parent(s)/guardian had taken no action by the child’s first birthday. This applied to almost all children in families in receipt of Child Tax Credit, and the rate of disconnect in this segment is c. 85%. The accounts are now typically worth c. £1,900 for the older young people from disadvantaged backgrounds , and the aggregate value of these disconnected accounts is therefore over £2 billion.

These estimates are borne out by account provider information, reported in the Sunday Times on 4th July 2021, that the accounts of over 58% of those who have already reached their 18th birthday since 1 September 2020 (nearly a quarter of a million young people thus far) are as yet unclaimed. By April 2023 the unclaimed rate for young adults had reduced to 42%, but as at August 2023 this means that over one million young people with accounts worth nearly £2 billion are not being claimed, predominantly by the most disadvantaged.

We estimate that the regional impact is highest in areas with the greater proportions of HMRC-allocated accounts, as shown in this chart:

When the oldest young person with a CTF reached 16 in September 2018, The Share Foundation hosted an event at the House of Commons. Then in March 2019, it supported former MP Helen Goodman in bringing a debate on CTFs to Westminster Hall. Later that year, it launched the CTF Ambassadors scheme, inviting volunteers to visit schools and local events to explain how the account works and how to locate it. In November 2019, one of its Ambassadors hosted a radio interview focused wholly on the CTF.

During 2023 The Share Foundation has worked closely with the National Audit Office and took part in the Public Accounts Committee hearing into Child Trust Funds on 18th May. The Public Accounts Committee’s report was published in July ‘23, and in September ‘23 HM Treasury issued their response within a set of minutes published on their website.

In early 2020, The Share Foundation launched the CTF search facility designed specifically for young people aged 16 and over who were born in the CTF age range, after extensive discussion with HM Revenue and Customs. This focus on 16 years of age is due to the facts that:

- just after their 16th birthday, a young person is sent their National Insurance number, a key identifying piece of information; and

-  from their 16th birthday, a young person is allowed to take control of their own account (although they can't withdraw the money until they are 18 years of age).

A partnership between The Tracing Group and The Share Foundation has developed a matching process called ‘The CTF Register’. It stores the data on all relevant ‘addressee gone away’ and ‘never registered’ CTF accounts held by participating account providers: thus far, account providers responsible for administering over four million out of the six million CTFs issued are participating in this initiative. When a young person registers on findCTF.sharefound.org to find their account, their data is electronically checked with the CTF register.

This facility has thus far linked nearly 40,000 young people with their accounts, and The Share Foundation has undertaken a survey with over 1,500 of these young adults in order to assess the benefits that they have experienced from the scheme.

The Share Foundation is raising the profile of findCTF.sharefound.org significantly by a variety of routes including social media and by providing resources for events for young people. We hope that such events will be publicised by schools, local authorities, and youth organisations across the United Kingdom. Since there are now so many young adults with Child Trust Funds, we’re inviting them to help friends and contemporaries to find their accounts, as young ambassadors.

The Share Foundation’s aim is to ensure that as many young people from disadvantaged homes as possible find their accounts and have the opportunity to become more financially aware and confident as they reach adulthood – arranging CTF events is a great way to ensure that no-one is left out.

The Share Foundation is a strong advocate of inter-generational rebalancing, and the Child Trust Fund is one of very few examples in the world of a determination to put this strategy into practice. The Share Foundation’s CTF recovery campaign is therefore a significant opportunity to prove the effectiveness of the CTF programme.

* Please note that there are now just 10 active HMRC-allocated account providers following mergers and transfers over the past 20 years.