Page 24 - Community Living Magazine 34-2

finance
Blocked from their own savings

Child trust funds were designed to provide a nest egg when teenagers reached adulthood.
However, young people with learning disabilities are being denied access to their own funds,
writes Ed Davey MP

ince September, the first generation the stress, hassle and bureaucracy that
of 18-year-olds have started to be are sadly an all too common features of
Sable to access the money in their life as a carer.
child trust funds. These are savings
accounts that the government set up back Firsthand caring experience
in 2005, into which parents were I understand carers’ challenges very well. I
encouraged to pay to provide a nest egg have been a carer for much of my life.
for their children when they turned 18. First as a teenager, nursing my mum
However, many disabled young people during her long battle against bone
find themselves locked out of cancer. Later for my nanna, organising her
their accounts, unable to access their care and trying to make her last few years
own money. Ed Davey: a small change to the law would as comfortable as we could. And now, as a
I was first alerted to this problem by the resolve the problem at no cost to taxpayers father, as Emily and I care for our disabled
father of Mikey, a young man who is son John.
severely disabled due to a face exactly the same problem when it So I understand the challenges that
neurodegenerative condition. comes to accessing their junior ISAs – the millions of carers face every single day. I
Mikey turned 18 in September 2020, so newer saving vehicles that replaced child know that being a carer – whether for a
he should have been among the very first trust funds. disabled child, a terminally ill parent, or
young people to have access to their child an elderly relative – can be rewarding and
trust fund. His parents and grandparents Prohibitive costs full of love. But I also know that it is far
had paid into his account over the years Under the current rules, parents can from a glamorous life. It can be relentless
to give him a modest sum of money that gain access to the funds only if they and exhausting.
would be his own. apply to the court of protection to be
Mikey wants to use that money to buy granted the legal power to manage their
a specially adapted tricycle. But, because child’s finances. Because Mikey cannot
of an unfair bureaucratic hurdle that The problem is cost – just making manage his finances, his
should be easy for the government to fix, an application costs several hundred
he cannot. pounds. Add any legal fees, and the value parents should be able to
Because his disabilities prevent him of the child trust fund (an average of access the fund for him – but
from managing his own finances, Mikey around £2,100) can quickly be swallowed
is not able to access that money himself. up by what are, in effect, unfair exit the rules mean they cannot
Of course, his parents should be able to penalties that apply only to disabled
do it on his behalf – but the rules young people.
governing child trust funds mean that And it is not just the financial penalty That is why, when I became leader of
they cannot. that disabled young people like Mikey and the Liberal Democrats, I promised to be
There are tens of thousands of disabled their families are facing. The court of the voice of the nine million carers in our
young people with child trust funds who protection process is slow; cases can drag country. Because carers do a remarkable
will find themselves in the same position on for more than six months and and important job but they are too often
as Mikey when they turn 18 – possibly as sometimes even a year until parents are forgotten by those in power.
many as 150,000. Thousands more will given access to the accounts. For Mikey, Struggles like the one Mikey’s parents
his neurodegenerative condition means are going through are too often ignored or
that every moment is precious. met with bureaucratic indifference – the
His parents worry that by the time they “computer says no” attitude that is blind
have gone through the whole process, it to people’s everyday lives.
will be too late for Mikey to buy that I know how incredibly frustrating that
tricycle and enjoy it. can be as a carer, with the unnecessary
Simply put, the court of protection bureaucracy, the endless battles and the
route is not a good enough solution to feeling that you’re just not being
allow disabled young people like Mikey to listened to.
access their child trust funds. As a carer, you accept some of that as
First, it is clearly discriminatory: why an inevitable part of life. You grin and
should disabled young people have an bear it. But, sometimes, it does wear you
The legal costs of getting access to a child trust extra fence and extra cost, compared to down. Sometimes, it feels almost Paulo Pestana
fund could exceed the value of the fund itself their peers? Second, all it does is add to designed to.

24 Vol 34 No 2 | Winter 2021 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk