Where do the ££s come from?

The Government has agreed to provide £200 for every eligible looked after child in the United Kingdom to enable us to open the account in the first place. All other contributions are discretionary, but this commitment does ensure that we can open accounts for all eligible children and young people in care.

Of course we hope that nations and local authorities will consider adding to this public sector contribution: when Child Trust Funds were provided for children in care, many such contributions were made and helped to supplement the initial Government payments.

But it is part of our role at The Share Foundation to raise as much additional money as possible on a voluntary basis, preferably unrestricted, to increase account values to a worthwhile amount in order to help young people in care to start in adult life. We believe that it is the responsibility of the older generation in our community as a whole to help young people without family support to have a decent start in life, and we'll seek out contributions from wherever we can find them: from individuals, trusts and companies.

We will accept donations restricted by geography - by local authority or groups of local authority, or nations. But we prefer to give all eligible children and young people in care an even chance to have a worthwhile inheritance.

If you know anyone who might be able to help please let us know.

We will also be happy to handle contributions for specific young people from friends or relatives, or from the young person themselves: direct involvement in saving in this way will lead to their identifying more closely with the account, and it is something we want to encourage.

Finally, there may be sums which you as Local Authority are looking after on the child's or young person's behalf: perhaps the proceeds of a criminal injuries compensation award. We would be pleased to place these into their Junior ISA if you wish,  up to the annual limit of £9,000 and we're asking Government to consider allowing the full extent of such settlements to be transferred into the Junior ISA of a child or young person in care without reference to the annual limit. We'll let you know if we succeed in this quest.

So we hope, all in all, that the ££s will come in so that we can really contribute to a better start in adult life for these young people.