Haringey Council has unveiled a new scheme that will give all pupils a savings account when they start secondary school. The account is intended to encourage children to start saving from an early age and create an alternative to payday loan companies in the future.*shrugs* Oh, well, if they think they can cram this into the increasingly overloaded school day, who am I to jud…
Wait. Hang on. What if they haven’t got any money to open one?
Oh. I get it.
There will be approximately 2,200 pupils in Haringey starting secondary school in September 2014 and will all be given a £20 account with London Capital Credit Union.And this money, where will it come from? From taxpayers, of course!
The scheme will cost the council around £60,000 per year and the council hopes to continue the scheme year-on-year for all year seven pupils.No. No, it won’t ‘cost the council’, will it? It never does…
Normally I would have stopped reading after the warning phrase 'Haringey Council' but ,it being a slow morning dans Chez Dwarf, I continued.
ReplyDeleteMy thought is that by the time the 2,200 start secondary school then it will be far to late to 'undo' the bad habits acquired from a childhood spent infront of the latest 700" Widescreen Superview HyperColor Flatscreen-bought on pump.
"Give me a boy until the age of 7" (and you'll probably be of interest to Operation Yewtree) but an infancy spent with parents who are themselves 2nd Generation Benefits Claimants or who both have to work full time to cover the mortgage/rent means any attempt to introduce new spending habits at a time in life when the new NIKES are THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING to a child....
Way back in the 40s we had a savings scheme at my primary school. We had the lady from the bank come into school on Thursday morning and we would get time out of class to make a deposit - the thing was it was our money and there was no starting deposit from anyone other than ourselves or our parents. In fact I had that account until the early 60s when I converted it to a deposit account.
ReplyDeleteAs the Dwarf says, high school is much too late to start anything like that, it has to start in infants school for the kids of the dole wallahs otherwise it is useless.
Haringey Council are about 10 years behind. A similar scheme started up in the North East, with governors in a village school receiving a grant from the local authority to open savings accounts for each of the 40 children with a £5 starter. At the end of the following week, all but 4 of the accounts had had the money withdrawn and the accounts closed. I would accept Haringey's proposal if each of the councillors added a couple of quid of their own money to each account, but won't hold my breath.
ReplyDeletePenseivat
While this going on, the EU are discussing ways of getting their claws into private pension funds. We're all on the way to hell.
ReplyDelete"My thought is that by the time the 2,200 start secondary school then it will be far to late to 'undo' the bad habits acquired from a childhood spent infront of the latest 700" Widescreen Superview HyperColor Flatscreen-bought on pump."
ReplyDeleteDamned good point.
"... the thing was it was our money and there was no starting deposit from anyone other than ourselves or our parents."
As it should be! Money is EARNED, not given or loaned, should be the very first and ONLY lesson.
"At the end of the following week, all but 4 of the accounts had had the money withdrawn and the accounts closed."
*weeps alternate tears of rage and laughter*