Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the annual participation targets are for the National Citizen Service to 2020-21.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Ministers confirm the annual participation target for the NCS programme alongside the approval of the yearly budget for the NCS Trust. For 2018/19, Ministers agreed a target of over 100,000 participants.
The budget and participation target for 2019/20 are not due to be agreed until March 2019. The target for financial year 2020/21 will not be agreed until March 2020.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much public money has been allocated to uniformed youth organisations in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not all held centrally. In January 2015, a list showing grant schemes run by central government since the 2013 to 2014 financial year was published on GOV.UK, and subsequently annually updated. It can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-grants-register.
This government has invested £5 million in 2018-19 in supporting uniformed youth organisations to engage thousands of disadvantaged young people in areas of deprivation across the country, improving their wellbeing, mental health and life skills. Details of the funding announced to date can be found at the following link:
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he (a) has received representations and (b) holds information on changes to the commissioning and procurement procedure by the National Citizen Service Trust in identifying delivery partners and subcontracted partners in the English regions to which it plans to deliver directly; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Ministers have not received representations on changes to the commissioning and procurement procedure by NCS Trust in the regions it plans to deliver directly.
NCS Trust is running its Recommissioning Programme to execute a revised delivery model for the NCS, in order to help it meet its objectives. Central to this model is the procurement of three different types of partner organisations that together will enable the delivery of the NCS programme from start to finish. Officials in DCMS are working closely with colleagues in the NCS Trust to make sure the Recommissioning Programme is successful.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 April 2018 to Question 135849, what recent steps he has taken to reduce the amount spent on unfilled places.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
NCS Trust has regular checkpoints planned with its Delivery Partners to discuss their forecast performance in 2019 and make adjustments to the number of places commissioned where appropriate, in order to minimise spend on unfilled places
For provider contracts that begin in 2020, NCS Trust has re-designed the way its outsourced regional Management Partners will be paid, in order to significantly reduce the amount spent on places which are not filled.
In areas where NCS Trust will be providing the regional management function itself, flexibility has been created within its contracts with Delivery Partners to confirm participant numbers for each season at a later point in the year. This will allow NCS Trust to make an assessment of the level of demand for NCS places, based on the number of young people who have signed up, ensuring an accurate number are commissioned. The aim of this approach is to use performance data in-season to better align the supply and demand for NCS places, minimising the number which are paid for but not filled.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much and what proportion of the total budget of the National Citizen Service was spent on advertising and marketing in each year since 2011.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Office for Civil Society funds the NCS Trust through an annual agreement. This provides a budget to cover NCS provider payments and a budget to cover NCS Trust's operating costs.
NCS Trust was incorporated on 1 October 2012 and its first annual accounts were published on 31 March 2014. A summary of NCS marketing as a proportion of total budget has been provided below.
Programme Year | Marketing spend | Total budget | Marketing as % budget |
2014-15 | £4,075,751 | £117,000,000 | 3.48% |
2015-16 | £7,422,841 | £155,000,000 | 4.79% |
2016-17 | £11,036,607 | £181,000,000 | 6.10% |
2017-18 | £9,949,813 | £181,000,000 | 5.50% |
2018-19 | £7,696,034 | £178,000,000 | 4.32% |
An independent evaluation of the NCS programme commissioned from Kantar Public by DCMS in 2016 found that for every £1 spent, NCS's programmes delivered up to £2.42 of benefits back to society.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to protect youth volunteering charities from financial difficulty; when his Department became aware of the financial difficulties facing vInspired; whether his Department is aware of other regional providers of the National Citizen Service who are in similar financial difficulties; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of young people affected by the closure of vInspired.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DCMS invests in youth organisations in a number of ways including the National Citizen Service and the Youth Investment and #iwill Funds in partnership with Big Lottery Fund.
Independent charities are responsible for managing their own funding through various mechanisms including donations, trading and investment; and are accountable for their own financial solvency.
vInspired informed DCMS officials that they were in financial difficulties and expected to shortly commence insolvency procedures in November 2018.
vInspired Education are responsible for delivering the NCS programme in the North East, however this is a separate legal entity to vInspired. We are not aware of any regional providers of NCS who are in financial difficulties.
The Department has assessed that there is no impact to young people on the NCS programme in the North East, and we do not currently hold an estimate of the number of young people who may be affected by other services vInspired provided.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure adequate funding for youth organisations.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Local authorities are responsible for allocating public funding to youth services in their area. We believe they are best placed to know what is required in their communities.
Alongside this, we are investing in youth organisations in a number of ways including:
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the recent London Youth report entitled A space of our own: The role and value of youth organisations in strengthening communities, what steps his Department is taking to support youth organisations to protect high quality physical spaces for young people.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government recognises the value of spaces for young people; a place of trust and safety, that provides high quality information, advice and guidance alongside positive activities that can help young people to develop skills, improve wellbeing and participate in their communities.
Local authorities are primarily responsible for allocating public funding to youth services in their area. In addition, the Government is investing up to £40 million (in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund) in the Youth Investment Fund, which is supporting 90 youth organisations around the country to create and expand open access youth projects, and is expected to benefit up to 300,000 young people. This is part of a wider range of Government investment in services and opportunities for young people such as the #iwill fund and National Citizen Service.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the recent report by London Youth entitled A space of our own: The role and value of youth organisations in strengthening communities, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that youth organisations are recognised as valuable parts of social infrastructure and are supported to strengthen communities.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government recognises the value of spaces for young people; a place of trust and safety, that provides high quality information, advice and guidance alongside positive activities that can help young people to develop skills, improve wellbeing and participate in their communities.
Local authorities are primarily responsible for allocating public funding to youth services in their area. In addition, the Government is investing up to £40 million (in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund) in the Youth Investment Fund, which is supporting 90 youth organisations around the country to create and expand open access youth projects, and is expected to benefit up to 300,000 young people. This is part of a wider range of Government investment in services and opportunities for young people such as the #iwill fund and National Citizen Service.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 19 July 2018 to Question 163143 on National Citizen Service Trust, what the timescale is for launching the NCS Trust Royal Charter body.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
We expect the NCS Trust Royal Charter body to launch on 1st December 2018, subject to the completion of the ongoing Board member recruitment campaign. The new Royal Charter body Chair, Brett Wigdortz, was announced in July this year.