£150m unlocked from dormant accounts to go to third sector

The Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced yesterday (May 20) that £150m will be made available from dormant bank and building society accounts to support charities and social enterprises during the crisis.

£79m has already been unlocked and is set to be repurposed to help charities’ coronavirus response and recovery, with an additional £71m in new funds being accelerated to go alongside it.

Vital and urgent work is being done to fight issues made worse by the coronavirus crisis such as youth unemployment, access to emergency loans and affordable credit for the most vulnerable in society.

The £150m will be broken down to best disperse the funding, with £65m earmarked for Fair4All Finance, looking at increasing access to fair, appropriate and affordable credit. £45m will be delivered through Big Society Capital to help provide emergency loans for charities, social enterprises and some small businesses and £30m will go to Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, who support social enterprises.

The final £10m will be go to the Youth Future Foundation, supporting young people from the hardest hit areas into employment.

The dormant assets scheme consists of 30 participating firms and banks, and since its launch in 2011 has voluntarily transferred over £600m in funds from accounts that haven’t been used in 15 years, to good causes across the UK.

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Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden said:

“Charities and social enterprises are playing a vital role in our national effort against coronavirus.

“This funding will support organisations that are at the heart of their communities, building on our unprecedented package of financial support for the voluntary sector.

“Through our proposals to further expand the dormant assets scheme, we want to unlock hundreds of millions more pounds for good causes, while keeping customer protection at the heart of the programme.”

Also supporting the sector, The Coronavirus Community Support Fund opens for applications tomorrow (May 22) and will deliver £200m worth of grants distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund.