Ministers will not interfere with NCS Trust, says body's chair

Speaking exclusively to CYP Now, Stephen Greene, chair of the National Citizen Service Trust, said there would be only one government-appointed civil servant sitting on the trust's board and they won't hold any "special powers" in relation to how it works.

He said: "The government, the ministers can’t control the trust – they don’t have any mechanism to do that. Certainly we’re on a grant and our grant can be taken away if we’re found to be not properly functioning. But David Cameron [the Prime Minister] and Nick Hurd [civil society minister] certainly won’t run the NCS Trust – far from it.”

Greene, also chief executive of RockCorp, was last year approached directly by Cameron and Hurd to run the new trust, which although set up this year is yet to get formal government approval to begin operating. Once officially launched, the community interest company will manage and expand the NCS as it aims to triple to 120,000 the number of 16- to 17-year-olds participating in it annually.

Greene also said the make-up of the board has been decided, with each volunteer board member being chosen for bringing particular areas of expertise. 

“It's a very functional board. We have very ambitious targets for NCS so each one of the non-executive directors has a specific area of expertise," he added.

Although Greene wouldn't give the names of the board members, he indicated that it is made up of senior figures from the worlds of politics, the third sector and business.

"Rather than going for a big-name patron board, these are people who bring deep experience from their various sectors to really help support the staff at the trust in hitting these ambitious targets.

"We have a fellow who has launched his own agency in digital communication specifically around social media, which is so important for NCS; an MP from the Labour party, who is very deep in community and youth engagement; a CEO of one of the nation’s largest youth charities and she has been doing stuff particularly for disadvantaged youth; and a former chair of the footsie 100 index to help on the governance side of things."

Greene, from Oregon in the US but who now lives in the UK, set up RockCorp, a charity that offers young people concert tickets in return for four hours of volunteering, in 2003. It now operates in nine countries.

See an interview with Greene in the next edition of CYP Now magazine.