Volunteering

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my fellow VSO friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, on this debate, and I declare my interest.

The Government’s flagship volunteering scheme is the National Citizen Service, funded at the unprecedented level of £1.25 billion between 2016 and 2020 and put on the basis of a royal charter body despite the lack of a convincing case to do so. It is a very controversial scheme about which there are many questions and over which parliamentarians have to exercise a degree of vigilance. I therefore read the NCS Trust’s annual report for 2016-17, in which I note that yet again it missed its targets and its very high unit costs remain static.

I have three questions for the Minister. I do not expect him to be able to answer them today, but I shall put them to him and await his answers. First, in 2016-17 the NCS generated a surplus of income over expenditure of £4.1 million. How much of that was from the NCS’s government income? How much will be returned to the Government and how much will go into the NCS’s reserves?

Secondly, the NCS Trust states that it has access to government databases to allow it to highlight eligible young people. During the passage of the Bill, Parliament was told that NCS would be allowed to send messages and mailings to 16 and 17 year-olds via HMRC. There was no mention of it having access to government databases. Could the Minister explain what form this access takes and which databases are put at the disposal of NCS?

Lastly, another question arising from the annual report: two members of staff, the chief executive and the marketing and communications director, receive remuneration of between £125,000 and £130,000 per annum, while six other staff receive remuneration in excess of £80,000. That is for running a single programme, the majority of the funding for which comes from the Government. How does this represent value for taxpayers’ money? This is a very high-profile scheme and it should be able to withstand detailed scrutiny. Given the amount of investment in it, Parliament ought to be responsible for ensuring that that scrutiny happens.