For NCS to prosper it must be compared
Howard Williamson
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The recurrent assertions by the government that the National Citizen Service (NCS) has not replaced "traditional" youth services have been, quite rightly, viewed as disingenuous.
As local authority youth services have effectively collapsed in many parts of England, with funding reductions often explained as unavoidable in the context of austerity, central government resources have been made available for the extension of NCS.
NCS has had many vocal critics from the start. Plucked as an idea out of nowhere, with no acknowledgement of similar work on the "citizenship" front being done routinely by other youth services, it was condemned for being short-sighted and short-term - just a few weeks in the summer months for those at the end of compulsory schooling. Compared with so-called "traditional" youth work, it was hellishly expensive. NCS has, we should note, become more flexible, but its phenomenal costs remain.
I was never professionally or ideologically opposed to NCS. I had argued for years for consideration of a national community service programme. Whatever its alleged flaws, NCS has significant merits, especially if it succeeds in attracting a social mix, supports completion of the programme and enables young people to contextualise their NCS experience in planning the next steps in their lives.
NCS has been subject to a range of evaluations, looking at value for money, return on investment and wider benefits. Many of the conclusions have been positive, which should be no surprise - for that kind of investment we should be achieving positive results.
Meanwhile, so many other youth projects have gone to the wall or are surviving by the skin of their teeth, scratching around for funding. Many have shown promise and effectiveness throughout their existence, but, unlike NCS, they lack political champions so remain vulnerable to the next round of cuts.
Much of this work almost certainly produces stronger benefits, certainly given per capita costs, than NCS. However, we don't know that. Youth minister Tracey Crouch, when asked to widen the scope of the annual evaluation of NCS so that it compared it with other youth provision with similar aims, had an opportunity to find out. She declined.
Evaluation of any kind of youth work faces significant challenges, but we are not talking about starting with a blank sheet of paper. There have been evaluations of youth work projects since the 1960s and a range of methodologies are to hand, including those used to make judgments about NCS.
In not taking this opportunity Crouch has bottled it. More courage in responding positively to the request would, or at least could, have silenced the critics or substantiated their concerns. Either way, it would have put NCS on more of a level playing field with other youth services, rather than being seen as the rather cosseted and favoured pet of the current English political administration.
Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of South Wales