National Citizen Service Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Anna Turley Excerpts

Committee debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the hon. Member for Croydon North for his comments, and particularly for the spirit in which he has addressed the amendment. There is an enormous amount in the Bill on which we agree. The amendment would add two additional reporting requirements to the NCS Trust, and I will cover each in turn. The first relates to the involvement of young people in governance.

The NCS Trust recognises that a programme for young people needs the input of young people in its design, governance and delivery. As the hon. Gentleman has noted, the NCS Trust has a national youth board that represents the views of 19 regional youth boards. A youth board representative often attends the main board meetings of the NCS Trust. The trust also has a group of 120 NCS leaders who act as ambassadors; this group provides another sounding board for the organisation. We want to keep the reporting requirements in the Bill short and focused on the overall aims of the NCS Trust. Clause 6 requires the trust to report on the number of participants, which links to its functions to promote NCS and, critically, on the quality of the programme.

When I wrote to the trust before Christmas about the involvement of young people among other things, the trust affirmed that, and I quote, “young people are at the centre of everything that we do”. The trust will need to continue to understand young people’s perspectives to make the programme appealing, and also to make it high quality. It will not be possible to attract young people to NCS, or to make it a high-quality experience, without knowing what young people actually want. To achieve the growth and the quality seen so far, the NCS Trust has had to use its youth board extensively, its young leaders and also real-time text feedback from participants to inform its strategy, critique its marketing campaigns and support programme delivery. In the future, when the trust reports on how it has achieved quality, we would expect it to cover how it has used young people to ensure that the experience is of a high quality for them.

The royal charter requires that board members are selected by fair and open competition. The board will need a mixture of skills, including an understanding of young people’s perspectives, and we would encourage young people to apply when the time comes.

The application process will be open and transparent, so we do not think it is necessary to ask the trust to report on how it has formed its board. I do hope that young people take the message that we want them to be involved and to apply. We will have further conversations with the trust about that.

In summary, I agree it is important that the trust involves young people in all aspects of its business, including governance, but we can drive this through the existing high-level requirements already set out in the Bill.

On the second part of the amendment, we agree that NCS should encourage young people to go on to do more volunteering. There is no question about that, and there is evidence that that is already happening; the NCS Trust estimates that NCS graduates give back on average an additional six hours of volunteering every month.

Long-term volunteering is only one possible positive outcome of NCS. NCS graduates might go straight into employment, an apprenticeship, or further or higher education. We would not want to isolate long-term volunteering as the only way forward from NCS. I am sure that is not what the hon. Member for Croydon North was implying.

Reporting on that matter would also present practical difficulties for the trust. NCS might inspire a love of volunteering in participants but, owing to other commitments, they might not volunteer again for several years. We cannot expect the trust to track participants for an unlimited time as part of a statutory duty. [Interruption.] I think I will come to the point that the hon. Member for Redcar is going to raise but I will let her raise it anyway.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate the Minister giving way, following a very small flick of my eyebrow; that was very perceptive of him. Will he take the opportunity to say a bit more about how NCS monitors results and what longitudinal studies it makes of the wider outcomes for those who participate, whether in volunteering or getting into work? We have all been very positive about the programme but it would be helpful to know what longitudinal studies the Government have to monitor success.

[Mr Wilson]

The long-term impact was also raised by the NAO in its report. No current impact studies are under way but there are annual studies of NCS’s impact. The NCS Trust is looking at how to set up the right form of longitudinal study to try to capture this work but has yet to come to any firm conclusions.

The issue about a long-term study is that this is still a relatively young scheme. It has been going since 2011 but is ramping up quickly and the numbers are becoming very significant. The matter is being looked at and is clearly something that we need to get right. It is something that the NAO highlighted and we recognise as important and for that reason we will take it forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wilson]

Clause 6 requires the NCS Trust to give the Secretary of State an annual report setting out its performance of its functions each year. The purpose of the clause, as with clauses 4 and 5, is to ensure that proper parliamentary accountability is in place. The report must cover, among other things, the extent to which the proposed strategic priorities and main activities of the NCS Trust for the year have been met and carried out. Those requirements will ensure that the report provides a rigorous means of assessing the success of the annual business plan.

The clause specifies several other areas that the report must address. Subsection (2)(c) requires the report to address the quality of programmes. The quality of young people’s experience is essential to the success of NCS. Paragraph (d) requires the report to cover the number of participants during the year. For it to be an effective rite of passage, NCS needs to reach as many young people as possible. The charter gives the NCS Trust a function to promote the programme, and the report would provide the means of assessing its success in this area. Linked to that, paragraph (e) requires the trust to report, in particular, on the number of disabled participants. We want people from all backgrounds to benefit from NCS, but young people with disabilities may need physical adjustments or additional funding and the report can provide a means of assessing whether the trust is successful in making the programme accessible.

Paragraph (f) requires the report to cover the extent to which participants from different backgrounds have worked together. Social integration is at the heart of NCS. A key strength of the programme is its ability to mix people from different backgrounds and change their perceptions of one another, and there is evidence to prove that that is the case.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the Minister’s explanation. Paragraph (f) is a really important and significant point. Could he say a bit about how different backgrounds are being monitored and what the criteria are for that?

[Mr Wilson]

An annual study reports on these things, and the studies show that in reaching black and minority ethnic communities and those on free school meals, the NCS Trust is doing extremely well in capturing more of those people on to the scheme than the national average. There is supportable evidence to show that it is doing well. We want to continue to monitor it and make sure that it continues to do well. I note the earlier comments from the hon. Member for Croydon North that the numbers have gone down, even though they are still above the national average, on free school meals. The trust will be very conscious of that and we will look at that.

Paragraph (g) requires the report to cover the number of hours that have been spent volunteering on community projects as a result of participating in NCS programmes. NCS is designed to benefit the wider community, not just the young people who are participating, so this is a key indicator of success. Parliament will be able to see, on a year-to-year basis, how the trust is performing in this area and how it has achieved meaningful social mixing across the country.

Finally, paragraph (h) requires the trust to report on the extent to which it has obtained value for money. We want a quality programme that is accessible to all, but we also want to ensure that NCS provides value for money for the taxpayer. Even though the NAO will be able to conduct external value-for-money studies, Parliament should be able to see what the trust has done in its own words. It is vital to the trust’s independence that it is able to report on its own work.