Dormant accounts slowly waking up?
Howard Lake | 14 December 2005 | News
The banking industry estimates that several hundred million pounds would be available for charitable activity under new policy finally agreed.
The Chancellor, Gordon Brown has revealed progress on the unclaimed assets issue in his pre-budget statement on 5 December 2005.
Brown said the Government has been working with the industry to design a scheme which both preserves the rights of the individual customer and at the same time allows these assets to be reinvested in the community.
The Government and the industry have agreed that the definition of an unclaimed asset should generally cover accounts where there has been no customer activity for a period of 15 years as that will best identify those accounts that are genuinely unclaimed, and it will consult further on the detail of this. On this basis, initial record searches by the industry suggest that several hundred million pounds may currently lie unclaimed.
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The Government believes that where owners and their assets cannot be reunited, the money should be reinvested in the community, particularly in deprived communities, in a sustainable way, through a coordinated delivery mechanism, with a focus on youth services that are responsive to the needs of young people, and also on financial education and exclusion. There would be an option for small locally-based financial institutions to focus on these needs in their local communities.
The Government and the industry will continue to work together, to develop the best structure to deliver this approach, and have said they will consult with stakeholders such as organisations representing the interests of young people and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets.
An independent Commission on Unclaimed Assets has been set up at the initiative of the Scarman Trust to engage government, banks, consumer groups, charities and the voluntary and community sector to recommend a framework for their productive use for the benefit of disadvantaged communities in the UK. NCVO is on the Advisory Council for the Commission.
The Balance Charitable Foundation was established in December 2003 and welcomed by the Government. It is a charitable initiative whose objectives are to release unclaimed assets held by UK financial institutions and to make grants to the charitable sector. It is a private sector initiative independent of Government, financial institutions and the voluntary sector.
The Irish government established under legislation three years ago a body to collect money from bank accounts and for the last two years has been distributing money under the Dormant Accounts Fund.
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
www.balancefoundation.org.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.