National Citizen Service

National Citizen Service (NCS)

Formation	2011
Type	Royal Charter
Legal status	Trust
Purpose	Personal and social development
CEO	Mark Gifford
Chair of NCS Trust	Harris Bokhari OBE
Website	https://wearencs.com/

National Citizen Service, also known as the NCS, is a Government-funded personal and social development program in England available for 16-17 year olds. The scheme is run by the NCS Trust, a public body for youth and a key component of the Government's National Youth Guarantee. Since being founded by David Cameron in 2009, NCS has provided around one million away-from-home youth development activities to young people.

Description

The programme takes place all year round as a choice based opportunity in which young people can choose to be part of an Away from Home experience, a Community Experience or a Digital Experience.

• In the Away from Home experience, groups of teenagers undertake a residential visit, usually to an activity centre for an outdoor education-style course involving physical and team building activities.
• The Community Experiences choice allows young people to participate in local youth activities through NCS’ grant-funded partners. These activities can be for specific groups of young people or available widely, depending upon the grantee offering in a local area. These Community Experiences engage with young people regularly over a period of 6 - 9 months offering workshop sessions and outdoor activities to build employability skills and life skills.
• The Digital Experiences choice offers a suite of online activities from broadcast media to interactive game-like experiences designed to upskill and empower young people to become work-ready and life-ready.

The National Citizen Service (NCS) also works with a number of partners to deliver wider youth enrichment and work opportunities.

History

The programme was designed and piloted in 2009 by social integration charity The Challenge.It was formally announced in 2010 by Prime Minister David Cameron as part of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's Big Society initiative, and it was launched in 2011. When the scheme was launched critics expected it to be an unpopular and unsuccessful non-military version of national service. Subsequently, however, it achieved cross-party support in Parliament.

After the 2015 general election, the programme was continued under the Conservative government. In October 2016 Cameron, who had resigned as Prime Minister, became chairman of the NCS Trust's patrons' board. In the 2016 Queen's Speech it was announced that the scheme would be made permanent through the National Citizen Service Bill which was then introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Ashton of Hyde. The bill received Royal Assent in April 2017 and the resulting National Citizen Service Act created a statutory framework for the programme.

The scheme was made permanent through the National Citizen Service Act 2017. With cross-party support, NCS became a Royal Charter Body in 2018.

In 2019, NCS created a new network of Management and Delivery Partners ensuring a high standard for young people who take part in NCS. This is further helped by 150+ partner organisations including charities, football clubs, private enterprises, local councils, schools and colleges. A Youth Voice Forum was also introduced, which won the Youth Friendly Employer Awards for Youth Voice in 2021. In 2023 the Youth Voice Forum grew into the Youth Advisory Board with 12 paid members aged between 18 and 24.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the NCS provided digital programmes.

In 2023 -24 NCS provided away-from home youth development activities to 178,000 young people, through a supply chain of over 300 frontline youth organisations.

Finances

NCS has matured a lot as an organisation since the first young people took part in its programme back in 2012. From its peak funding  in 2017/18 the Trust is now engaging with a higher number of young people each year on a greatly reduced level of funding.

Whilst the initial round of contracts enabled the Trust to grow the volume of Young People on programme, subsequent rounds removed the cost of unfilled places, brought efficiencies in the management structure,  reduced costs per place and answered some of the early criticisms of the Trust’s early years.

Following the improvements in our core residential offering the Trust has more recently developed both a year round community based grant offering to a wide range of youth organisations and a digital product offering. A recent two year cost optimisation strategy reshaped  the Trusts infrastructure and realigned costs across the organisation, resulting in further reductions in the cost of running the trust. Headcount has fallen 34% from its peak  and just 10% of costs are now related to its back office functions meaning 90% of costs are now directed to programme delivery. The cost of each individual engagement has fallen from £1,824 in 2015/16 to £268 in 2023/24 through a combination of new products, shorter programs, more efficient contracts and general cost savings.

NCS has also sought out the opportunity to build strategic partnerships with other organisations in the youth sector. Our recent partnership with One Million Mentors helped to develop and deliver the recruitment and training of 400 mentors who provided mentoring services to 635 young people in 2023-24.

In Wales

A pilot scheme took place in Wales in 2014 and a report examining whether it duplicates or complements existing schemes was commissioned. Cameron urged the Welsh Government to consider taking up the scheme and offering it across Wales.

External links

• Official website