A quarter of parents fail to invest free £250 Child Trust Fund voucher Figures from HM Revenue & Customs show that of the 555,000 vouchers issued in the 12 months to June 2011, 136,000 are yet to be invested. The vouchers issued at this time are worth £50 (£100 for low-income families) compared with £250 for previous vouchers, and it is feared that many people have not taken them seriously because of the drop in value. Jason Hollands, from one of the CTF providers, Foreign & Colonial, urged people to make a choice and invest their voucher - or risk being allocated a fund "that many not best suit their child's needs." Those who are eligible for a Child Trust Fund can choose between a cash or a shares product, but the stakeholder products are all investment products. "In time we would not be surprised if the CTF and Junior ISA regimes were merged, in the same way that Personal Equity Plans were eventually integrated in to the Individual Savings Account scheme," Mr Hollands said. There are Child Trust Funds still available that offer access to a wide a range of investments, including self-select plans. Importantly, the CTF allowance has already been significantly increased from £1,200 to £3,600 for the current tax year to harmonise it with the Junior ISA, so parents and guardians can tuck significantly more aside in existing CTFs if they are in a position to do so. Child Trust Funds - what to do now Your child is entitled to a Child Trust Fund if they were born between September 1 2002 and January 2 2011. If your child is under 18 and was born outside these dates they are entitled to a Junior Isa. To be eligible for a CTF you should also have been paid Child Benefit for that hild for at least one day before January 4. For each child that is entitled to a CTF account, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will usually send you a voucher. You use this to open the account in your child's name. The voucher is triggered by your claim for Child Benefit. The voucher could be worth £50 or £250 depending on when your child was born and when they became entitled to an account. Once you've got the voucher, you need to take it to an approved CTF account provider. They will open the account. If you have lost the voucher, you can get a replacement. The forms to do this are available online from www.direct.gov.uk. You can call the Child Trust Fund helpline on 0845 366 7870. Vouchers issued before 1 January 2012 are valid for 12 months. Those issued on or after 1 January 2012 are valid for 60 days. If your voucher has expired, HMRC will have opened an account for you automatically. If you want to change the account that has been opened for you need to contact the current provider. The Child Trust Fund helpline should be able to help you with this.