Big Society Capital has received the go-ahead from the European Commission, but Gordon Hunter warns that, in his experience, banks are not always so willing to co-operate in releasing dormant funds to the sector.

It’s good to know that the European Commission has endorsed the transfer of dormant accounts into the coffers of Big Society Capital. It will be used to fund “social investment”, effectively charitable loans and bonds. But will Dave’s Big Society project find the bankers and their regulators as co-operative as we have done?

We are the Lincolnshire Community Foundation, a grant-making Trust. We’ve given £6m to vulnerable people over the last ten years. We unlock dormant trusts (clogs to the workers) and spend the money on volunteering. A typical case was the Major Northcote Charity, a cobwebbed £1,000 lying untouched in the NatWest vaults for decades. Its eventual handover through legal transfer to us by a reluctant bank took something like 10 days work over the course of two frustrating years.

Along the way we lodged a complaint with the Banking Ombudsman which found entirely in our favour: the bank had been “willfully obstructive”. We got the money at last and a derisory offer of £300 in compensation (we’d asked for £3,500).

My thoughts are thus: why be obstructive and risk your reputation over such a paltry amount, and what’s the point of an ombudsman with no teeth?