In his budget speech in the House of Commons on April 17th 1956, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Harold MacMillan) proposed to exempt
from Income Tax the first £15 of income accruing to an individual from deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank and the Ordinary Department
of the Trustee Savings Banks.
Subsequently, Birmingham Corporation offered to set up a separate Department of the Bank paying
to depositors interest at the rate of 2½% per annum and passing the deposits to the National Debt Commissioners, provided that the
Government were prepared to allow the Tax concession to depositors in such Department, the Bank to continue to operate under its existing
Acts and Regulations with appropriate amendments. That new Department was named the No 2 Department, and a differently coloured passbook
was introduced to distinguish it from the existing (and original) savings department - now to be known as the No 1 Department.
The
new Department was opened on April 1st 1957, and an example of the passbook that was used is reproduced below.
The passbook shown here was used for an account at Smethwick branch. The account was
originally numbered SK 2399 T, but when an all-number
system was introduced, this number was amended to 55 - 2 - 2399.
The number was amended again on the
computerisation of the Bank's
accounts.
The inside front cover of the book has the words 'Continuation Book' noted to show that a previous book was issued
for the account.
The next information page details the
Interest Rates and general conditions relating to the two Savings Departments.
Amendments
to rates of interest required the insertion of a sticker - as per the example below.
Two pages of hand-entered transactions show monthly credits (marked '
Credit Advice'), withdrawals (marked 'REPAID' with a date stamp),
and two payments made by Standing Order on November 10th 1970 (£4. 12. 8 each).
The last page of transactions covers the date of
Decimalisation and the conversion of the account balance is marked with an appropriate rubber
stamp.
Inside rear cover -
one of the last information pages has a pre-printed 'Continuation Passbook Number', a security feature used to
monitor and record the issue of replacement and continuation passbooks.
The procedure for replacement and continuation passbooks
was specified to branches in
Instruction Number 7.
Examples of the front covers of passbooks for accounts in the
No 2 Department
and
No 1 Department
(No 2 Department passbook obtained by Rob Wilden)