Recommendation 6

HMRC is not planning to re-evaluate the scheme or learn lessons from its implementation that could help in the design or improvement of similar schemes. HMRC published an interim evaluation of the scheme in 2011 but has not reassessed the scheme since young adults first started claiming their money from matured accounts, which was in 2020. It claims there is no “particular appetite” for further evaluation. It told us that only ministers can decide if an evaluation of the scheme should be undertaken, with which we disagree. HMRC told us that its involvement in initiating evaluations is centred on advising ministers on the tax system, including areas it believes require further analysis. HMRC told us that from a policy perspective it learns lessons from previous work and creates ‘playbooks’ for 8 Child Trust Funds future policies. However, it is unclear to us how HMRC officials can give ministers comprehensive and up-to-date advice without sufficient evaluation of its schemes. It told us that government has learnt lessons from the experience of introducing Child Trust Funds, including on how to approach groups with very different levels of engagement with a universal scheme, but it has provided no detail of how those lessons have been learnt or where that learning has been captured. The engagement of the Share Foundation to manage Child Trust Funds on behalf of children in care has given a focus to those accounts and should be a lesson for HMRC on how to make its schemes work well for hard-to-reach groups. Recommendation 6: HMRC should, at the appropriate time within the next 24 months, evaluate the scheme to understand what has been achieved from government’s £2 billion investment and what impact it has had on the lives of young people and identify lessons that would benefit similar schemes in the future, particularly around how to design and implement a scheme that works well for vulnerable groups. Child Trust Funds 9 1 Access to Child Trust Funds