KMS Academic Wins Social Entrepreneur Award

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Posted on 26 April 2013

The Keele University Social Entrepreneur Awards form part of a initiative funded by HEFCE and delivered by UnLtd., the foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, to offer grants and tailored support to selected social entrepreneurs in 56 partner universities. As part of the scheme, Mr. Geoff Heath (Fellow in Public Sector Accounting, KMS) has been awarded a grant for £5,000 in conjunction with the Staffordshire Credit Union. Credit unions are mutual savings and loans enterprises and there are now close to a million members of 400 credit unions in the UK. The project concerns the development of ‘Jam Jar’ accounts. These provide a personal budgeting and bills payment service for tenants who receive benefits; whereby the benefits are transferred to the credit union, placed into separate budget accounts and rent is ring fenced so that part of the payment is automatically and instantly transferred out again to their landlords.

This service will become particularly valuable on the introduction of Universal Credit in October, 2013, when a number of individual benefits will be combined into a single payment and issued to only one family member and in arrears. It is intended that the Credit will be paid  directly to claimants, whereas previously rent was paid to Registered Social Landlords out of housing benefit. Consequently, the credit union has been in discussions with representatives of local housing associations and  councils who have stressed both the need  for jam jar accounts and the desirability of carrying out a small scale pilot project initially, which is enabled by the grant. Once developed, however, this project should have a  lasting effect, in an area of relatively high deprivation, by giving people the flexibility to use their money without getting into expensive arrears. 

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