Government spending watchdog to probe National Citizen Service
Adam Offord
Monday, October 24, 2016
The parliamentary spending body will investigate whether the government is achieving value for money from the National Citizen Service (NCS) initiative, it has been announced.
??The National Audit Office (NAO) said it will examine early evidence on the social action programme for 15- to 17-year-olds to find out if it is working, what the challenges are in meeting growth targets over the next four years, and whether the system is set up in a way to support the level of continual growth required.
The NCS, seen as a flagship initiative of former Prime Minister David Cameron, first launched in 2011. The aim is that eventually every teenager in England will get the chance to take part.
To this end, the government is pumping £1.2bn into the programme and introducing a legislative bill to place NCS "on a permanent statutory footing" in order to meet its target of 300,000 participants by 2020.
However, growth targets are yet to be hit. Cabinet Office data published last year showed 57,609 young people participated in the programme in 2014, well below the 90,000 target. Figures for uptake in 2015 are due to be published later this year.?
Earlier this year it emerged that the NCS Trust is set to spend up to £75m on advertising and marketing over a four-year period.
Responsibility for the NCS was initially held by the Department for Education, but was shifted to the Cabinet Office alongside youth policy in general in 2013, prior to being handed to the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport earlier this year.
