Introduction

Asset-based welfare has provoked attention as one of the most innovative ideas in recent public policy. Policies to promote assetbased welfare can take a variety of forms (Kelly and Lissauer, 2000). One of the most prominent schemes centres on paying young people a capital grant once they reach a certain age. One reason why young people command attention is that they are the section of the population that have least access to assets (Banks and Tanner, 1999), and so tackling this points towards initiatives directed at the young.

However, there is as yet little evidence of the attitudes of young people themselves to this kind of policy. The attitudes of young people are important for the current and future design of this policy, since capital grant policies can be constructed in a variety of ways. Grants can differ over the amount of money that is paid out, the restrictions that are imposed on the use of such grants, as well as ways of funding the grants. The success of any scheme will depend on how young people choose to make use of their grants. Investigating their views helps anticipate which policies are likely to be a success and which issues need to be faced when revising and developing the policy.

This chapter presents findings from 11 focus groups held in Sheffield and London between 9 February 2004 and 16 June 2004 on the attitudes of young people to different models of capital grants. We seek to draw implications from these focus groups not just for the immediate development of policies like the Child Trust Fund (CTF), but also, more tentatively, for wider debates about the future of the welfare state. We find that young people react favourably to capital grant schemes, and like the idea of the CTF. Looking beyond the framework of current policy, our focus groups were in favour of a more generous CTF, although they wanted it to be a complement rather than a substitute for existing forms of welfare provision.

The chapter is structured as follows. First, by way of context we discuss how asset-based welfare appears to have been concentrated thus far in the US, Britain, Canada and Australia (countries sometimes referred to as ‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’), but why it may still have implications for other welfare states.