National Citizen Service participation rises three-fold

In 2012, 26,003 16- and 17-year-olds enrolled for an NCS project compared to 8,500 in 2011. However, despite the government creating 32,000 places, 6,000 failed to be taken up.

Just over 22,000 participants took part in projects run during the summer holiday, while 3,871 participated during the autumn half-term for the first time.

The NCS brings together young people from different backgrounds in England and Northern Ireland and supports them to take part in residential activities and community projects. It plans to offer up to 150,000 places by 2016.

The analysis by charity NatCen Social Research showed that the cost of an NCS place rose from £1,553 in 2011 to £1,662 last year.

The numbers of young people completing the NCS programme also improved, with drop-out rates falling from 19 per cent in 2011 to 16 and 15 per cent for the summer and autumn holidays respectively. The vast majority of participants felt the programme had helped them develop skills that would improve their job prospects.

The researchers estimate the societal benefits of the NCS summer programme at £102m. Delivering the summer programme cost £36.8m, meaning that the societal benefit was up to 2.8 times greater than this. In 2011, the benefit was estimated at between one and two times the cost of delivery.

The figures are calculated using a series of projections based on the improved education and earnings opportunities of participants and increased tax revenues that will be realised in the future. It also values the volunteering time of young people at £1.4m.

However, NatCen admits that follow-up work it has done on the 2011 NCS participants suggests that its initial estimate of up to £28m of societal benefits was overly optimistic, with the figure being revised down to £10-11m.

The report says: “The difference between the two estimates was mainly due to the fact that positive attitudes of the NCS participants in 2011 towards education were not reflected in the actual uptake of educational opportunities between 2011 and 2012. Thus the anticipated economic impact of NCS 2011 on education did not appear to materialise.

“The revised estimate of the 2011 programme showed that the ratio dropped as some impacts were not sustained. However significant changes have been put in place for the 2012 graduates, to encourage and support the participants and as such it could be expected that longer-term outcomes may be stronger than seen in the 2011 cohort."