National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a declared interest in the register, mentioned by the Minister. I am grateful to him for commencing his speech today by mentioning the impact of NCS on young people and the impact of the work of young people on communities and the most vulnerable. If this Bill is worth anything, it is to embed what NCS means for young people themselves rather than the technicalities, the charter and the necessary accountability provisions that are spelt out in what is, after all, a modest measure.

I offer my support for the Bill and in doing so recognise the enormous contribution over generations that not only individual volunteers but organisations committed to full and part-time volunteering have made in providing the backcloth to the decision of the Government four years ago substantially to fund an experience of volunteering for young people around the time that they reach the end of key stage 4, and the way in which that might be embedded as part of a much broader commitment by the British nation to encouraging people to understand the value of mutuality and reciprocity. It is why I believe that there can be no political party in this House or beyond that would doubt the importance of the experience that young people will gain from National Citizen Service.

Embedding, as I know from my time in Government, is a critical feature of something surviving. I will come in a moment to the issue of one endeavour that I was involved in, namely citizenship education, but many good things foundered because there was not the commitment of subsequent Ministers or even the same Government to the initiatives started. If this Bill enables us to embed that experience for young people and then build on it, so much the better.

The antecedents are substantial. Almost 20 years ago, we commenced the initiative Millennium Volunteers, which built on a number of volunteer programmes—again, full and part-time—that already existed: Community Service Volunteers, of which I was once a member of the trust and which is now Volunteering Matters; the Prince’s Trust with its short programmes; the national Conservation Volunteers; Groundwork; and very many other initiatives that led to some subsequent government initiatives as well. I pay tribute to Dame Elisabeth Hoodless who, over her many years leading CSV, pioneered the idea of an experience for all young people and the issue of full-time service, which I know my noble friend Lady Royall will refer to in greater detail.

I want to spell out three things. First, it is critical that the National Citizen Service follows an existing pattern of commitment by young people to the idea of citizenship and commitment to others. That is why it is critical that the review the Government undertake of citizenship education and related issues takes into account the vital nature—not just for recruiting young people to NCS but for their own growth as young adults and the commitment they can make to society—of ensuring that citizenship education is reinforced. At the moment, there are real dangers. The numbers being trained to teach citizenship has fallen dramatically. The in-service continuing professional development is at risk. The question of those encouraged to take the GCSE, even though it is a core subject, has been in considerable doubt. Of course, A-level citizenship is to cease, along with a number of other A-levels over the next two years. Frankly, that requires a further look and review. The regulator and department should be much more on the ball in terms of what is happening in future.

We have the Government talking at great length about character education, as though that can be taught outside the broader experience we are debating this afternoon. Of course, we have the Prevent strategy. None of these things can possibly be seen in isolation. They are critically linked together in terms of developing that experience of giving and receiving.

When I was 16, I volunteered to go and see an old lady called Mrs Plum. I used to go every week in term time until, two years later, I was leaving the school for the blind to go back to Sheffield. I went to tell Mrs Plum that I hoped I had been some help to her over the two years. As soon as I told her I was returning to Sheffield, her response was, “Well, David, I really hope I’ve been some use to you over the past two years”. This is of course a reciprocal venture. We give and we gain. Volunteering shows that. As the Minister described, it builds the confidence, self-esteem and outward-going nature of young people. It helps develop their understanding of the world around them. It also teaches them how much value they can give to others, and what a reward that can be.

The opportunity for volunteering needs to be widened. As I said a moment ago, this should be an experience that flows from already understanding why social action matters and why Step Up To Serve, with the uniformed organisations, is important.

I pause only to make an appeal that I have made many times in my life: voluntary organisations committed to and working with young people should work together. People think that the voluntary sector, the charity sector, which I have always embraced, is full of loving people who desire to work together and want nothing more than to encourage other organisations. I wish it were true. Unfortunately, it is not. What the NCS Trust is doing is not a threat to other organisations, uniformed or otherwise; it is an opportunity for them to work together. The NCS Trust needs to learn more about how to work collaboratively, but so do many other organisations, because this can be a win-win if people are prepared to commit in that way. So what comes after the National Citizen Service, as well as what went before it, is absolutely critical to success.

I hope we will be able to build on this with whatever review the Government feel is appropriate. If it is not going to be a commission, I hope it will be a serious review of how we can make this work for every young person and expand the experience in terms of what they gain from the NCS: the four weeks, including the residential; mixing with young people from very different backgrounds, which the Minister mentioned; and the way in which social action is encouraged and young people are thereby enabled to understand the impact that they have on others. I hope also that it will encourage full-time opportunities, perhaps leading to a year of service. No doubt my noble friend will refer to this.

I need to put some questions to the Minister. This is an exploratory endeavour in which we are on a journey together, and putting the quality of outcome before numerical targets is essential. My own Government, including in the eight years I was in Cabinet, were bedevilled by setting targets and if we did not meet them it looked like failure. The present Government do it with inward migration. It does not matter how well you do, if you set an impossible target you will always fail to achieve it, with the consequence that people believe that you have not achieved the outcome. In this case, the outcome is the experience gained by young people. Therefore, the 92,000 who were on National Citizen Service this year is a phenomenal achievement in the time it has taken to build that outcome measure. My first request is: please do not set targets that are impossible to meet and result in diluting the brand and undermining confidence in it.

My second question concerns the transition. The Minister mentioned this, but in mechanistic terms. There has to be a commitment to transition from the existing board to the oversight under the new arrangements. Please let there be time to do that. If not, there will be a dislocation in that transition process which will be damaging to young people.

Thirdly, please reinforce again and again that this is going to be independent of government. It cannot be a non-departmental public body. Young people do not like government schemes. It is just a fact. If we have not learned it bitterly over the past 40 years, starting with the youth training programmes, we might learn it now. Maximum independence, with proper oversight and accountability, is essential. I understand oversight and accountability. I understand that the Government have had their fingers burned in recent years with large sums of public money, which have to be accounted for and must be used wisely. But let us try to get the balance right. Control-freakery is not a feature of an individual Government; it is built into the psyche of government processes and procedures.

Finally, can we make sure that the transition includes independent scrutiny of who is appointed? It is my view, and that of the National Citizen Service Trust, that it would be entirely wrong to have a formal government or opposition appointee on the board. Obviously, the chair is appointed through government but the board should be appointed openly through normal public service recruitment programmes and should be seen to be independent. The board should not be paid. Those of us who serve on the board currently would be horrified to think that we were receiving funding for doing the job. I want to pay tribute to Stephen Greene, the present chairman, who has freely and readily given the most enormous amount of time to getting NCS off the ground and making it work. He is committed to the future.

We no longer have a duty on public bodies in the Bill; the original draft did. I hope that there will be an entitlement built in so that schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities will not feel that this is an imposition, but will take on board the idea of an entitlement for young people to feel that this is something that builds a generation for the future. I believe that we can do it together if the Government are prepared to listen to any sensible suggestions made during the passage of the Bill to enhance its support and its impact. If these suggestions are helpful, so much the better.

I know that this afternoon, those who speak will do so from the heart, because all of us, from all parties, care deeply that we create a nation with a commitment to giving to each other, to opening up civil society and democracy, and to making sure that what we do for young people is more than simply teaching them the basics, but teaching them the foundation for life. That is why I am prepared to give my wholehearted support to seeing the National Citizen Service, along with its partners, succeed in the future.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I cannot guarantee that there will not be any enclosures, but I do not think there will be the one that my noble friend is thinking of. It is only one way of reaching young people. Schools, local authorities and direct marketing all play a role.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, also talked about the importance of people with disabilities. The trust is currently developing a detailed inclusion strategy to ensure that over the long term there is consistent and high-quality provision for all. Many NCS providers already reach out and offer support to those with disabilities. For example, the largest provider, The Challenge, has worked for the National Deaf Children’s Society. It has adapted the programme for young people and has provided dedicated support workers. Across NCS, young people with special educational needs have personal coaches and one-to-one support workers alongside staff members. However, I acknowledge there is work to do in this area.

Many noble Lords mentioned local authority engagement. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for example, was one. We certainly want NCS to be woven into the social fabric of communities and local authorities clearly have a central role to play in this. That is why officials from the DCMS have been engaging with local authority representatives in a series of regional workshops on working with NCS. The ideas generated will feed into national government guidance, setting out how local authorities can promote NCS and maximise the benefits in their area.

The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and my noble friend Lady Byford asked if we should reconsider the requirement and duty of schools to promote NCS. I do not think we are going to do that. We want to work collaboratively with schools, rather than impose burdens on them. We are working with representatives from schools to develop guidance on working with NCS. I have some personal experience on other Bills before your Lordships’ House of imposing duties on education establishments, and it certainly was not very popular at the time. I fear therefore that we are not going to do that.

As far as whether there should be a duty on the NCS Trust to collaborate with the wider sector, we are certainly ready to discuss that in Committee in detail. At the moment, the NCS Trust partners a broad range of charitable and social enterprise organisations—over 200—which deliver NCS. Young people often develop lasting links with the organisations they work with, making a real impact at grass-roots levels with local community groups. The trust is a part of Generation Change, a group of youth organisations looking to collectively increase the scale, quality and status of youth social action programmes. The trust is committed to helping NCS become a gateway to other programmes and opportunities, helping young people to see volunteering as a habit for a lifetime.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked whether NCS should just be a commissioner of programmes. As I mentioned, the NCS Trust oversees the delivery and it already works with a supply chain of over 200 regional and local providers. The trust’s job is to shape, support and champion NCS by promoting it to young people across the country. At the moment, however, we want to maintain the flexibility of the NCS Trust to do the job in the way that seems best for it.

My noble friend Lord Wei and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about small charities and I agree this is a very important consideration because small and medium-sized charities play a vital role in NCS delivery, particularly in hard-to-reach groups, which can be targeted in the groups’ local area. At the moment, some of the bigger providers use smaller charities to do exactly that. The royal charter requires the NCS Trust to ensure equality of access to the programme and have regard to the desirability of promoting social mobility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about pre- and post-NCS and whether we would consider amendments to support and not undermine youth social action groups. I certainly look forward to discussing that with her in Committee. The NCS Trust has expertise specifically in NCS, and I must say that we are cautious about seeing the trust, or indeed the Bill, as a vehicle for everything that the Government will continue to support, as my noble friend Lady Vere mentioned, but I accept that that is a point to be discussed in Committee.

My noble friend Lady Byford also asked what happens after NCS. The NCS provides an online opportunity hub for NCS graduates to help them on their next step. I noted the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, of enterprise passports, which I will have to consider in further detail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about reporting and asked how many graduates go on to later volunteering. I mentioned that 2013-14 graduates undertook 8 million hours of volunteering. The NCS Trust is focused on the NCS programme, but the Government are committed to support the wider social action journey, and we are keeping it under review.

Many noble Lords talked about a commission or a review, and I thank noble Lords for the suggestion on full-time volunteering. The Government made a manifesto commitment to support social action. We know that there continue to be challenges and obstacles to participation in some forms of social action, and are therefore considering how they can be identified and addressed—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also mentioned that.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson talked about the International Citizen Service. We agree that the NCS is an excellent gateway to it—it is for a separate age group, the next age range up. ICS benefits both its participants and the UK’s standing abroad, so we agree with him on that. NCS has a big task ahead of it in getting more people to join, so for the time being we are not ready to commit to an international element, but we recognise that NCS can act as a step towards the ICS.

My noble friend Lord Cormack talked about citizenship ceremonies, which is a long-standing cause of his. The NCS itself culminates in a graduation ceremony with a certificate signed by the Prime Minister, and I invite my noble friend to attend one, but I take on board his wider suggestions, which may not be part of the Bill.

I will answer some of the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, which are relevant to other noble Lords. She asked why such a large sum is spent on NCS. We will provide funding to deliver the manifesto commitment of a place available for everyone who wants it. The Bill will require the trust to lay its annual accounts and reports before Parliament, to ensure that Parliament can continue to protect value for money for the taxpayer. We make no apologies for what NCS is: it is unique and requires investment of both money and effort, especially in hard-to-reach groups. NCS is successful and a countrywide badge which applies equally from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Billericay. We think it is money well spent and we hope to grow it in a sustainable way.

My noble friend Lord Wei asked probably the most difficult question of the debate: will I guarantee spending post-2020? That is a hard thing to ask a Minister, particularly one who has been in post for only a few weeks. The answer is, obviously, that I cannot bind a future Government, but the Bill goes as far as it can to entrench NCS as an institution.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked whether the service could be delivered by other organisations. There is no comparative analysis. It is delivered by more than 200 organisations, as I said. The NCS Trust acts as a central commissioning body and promotes the programme. As for comparative analysis, it is difficult to compare it to something similar because this is unique. But, of course, its value for money will be undertaken by the National Audit Office. Accounts are available online, and if anyone cannot find them we will be happy to supply the link. They will continue to be available online.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, talked about amending the royal charter, and said there was no consultation. It was published as a Command Paper, giving both Houses the opportunity to scrutinise it and see that it provides for appropriate government oversight on such matters as the appointment of board members and the chair. The charter expresses the Government’s commitment to the independence and permanence of the trust. We believe that the royal charter achieves the right balance between protecting NCS for the future, while allowing its scope to evolve.

I want quickly to talk about one thing which is very important. Many noble Lords have mentioned the growth targets of the NCS Trust. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott and the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Lennie, asked whether there would be quality in the outcome. We have made the commitment that there will be a place for everyone, but we do not want to put numerical targets before quality. The programme has grown because people value it, and we remain committed to offering this place. We agree that quality is very important and we want to provide a quality place for everyone who wants it. How will that be judged? An annual report will have to be published, and it is specifically mentioned that the quality of the year’s performance has to be reported on.

I am coming to an end and I am sorry that I cannot mention everyone’s points.

[Lord Blunkett]

Will the Minister write to me about transitions, as this could avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or amendment?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I certainly commit to do that for the noble Lord, and to everyone whose questions I have not answered. I will put copies of that letter in the House.

We are at a pivotal moment on NCS. It was tested on a small scale, proved a success and was rolled out more widely, and still proved a success, as the independent evaluations attest. It earned its cross-party support and the Government’s commitment to provide a place for every young person who wants one. Now is the time to cement its place in national life and do all we can to ensure that future generations of young people will benefit. It is time to create a delivery structure for the programme that reflects NCS’s status as an enduring service for young people that is transparent and accountable to Parliament.

I look forward to the Committee stage and working with your Lordships in doing what this House does best: to test the Bill and ensure that its provisions meet those aspirations—aspirations that I think we share. This is our opportunity to create an enduring and effective delivery structure for a programme that has proven qualities—a National Citizen Service that enhances young lives and unites communities. I commend the Bill to the House and invite your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde; since Second Reading he has been at great pains to discuss with opposition Members some aspects of the Bill. I put on record my thanks to organisations such as the challenge trusts, which have been similarly forthcoming in light of the searching questions that we on these Benches raised on Second Reading. I forgot to declare my interests on Second Reading; I have been a management consultant for over 30 years in the voluntary sector, and have a small consultancy that specialises in charities and voluntary organisations. I have no dealings with this organisation or any people engaged in delivery of the programme, but that experience of looking at voluntary organisations—how they are established, how they work and the trouble that they get into—led me to ask a series of questions on Second Reading about the establishment of this organisation. Those questions remain unanswered and that sets the scene for our more detailed probing this afternoon.

I hope that Members of your Lordships’ House might forgive some of us to whom voluntary sector organisations are deeply fascinating things; it might not be so for them. They should appreciate that the Government are about to invest a billion pounds in this organisation, so it falls to us to do some of the important due diligence that should be done in advance of such a decision.

I went away from Second Reading, read the Minister’s speeches carefully, and listened to and read again the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maude. I am now even more certain than I was before that the Bill is based on two flawed assumptions. The first is that the National Citizen Service is unique. It is, in that it has had unprecedented support from the Government, but it is not in terms of the young people with whom it works or the benefits that it delivers to them. It is unique only in that its programme is four weeks long. Other organisations work with as large a range of people in the youth sector and do so on an ongoing basis. That assumption right at the beginning is profound, flawed as it is, because all the decisions that flow from it in the Bill are built on that wrong assumption. It is not true that the service is unique and can be delivered only by this organisation.

The second thing, which flows from that, is the statement made by the Minister during the debate on 25 October in cols. 187 and 188: that because the service is “unique”, it is incomparable. That is also wrong. Although the service is of a very tight and specific nature, its outputs and its outcomes for young people can be analysed and compared to those of other organisations. Some of them will be among the 200 organisations which deliver the National Citizen Service. It is therefore possible to look at the work done by this organisation, and its cost-benefits, and compare them.

I submit that that analysis should have been done before the decision to make the current sizeable investment was taken. It certainly should be done before the decision is taken to set this organisation in—to use a word that the Minister used in his speech—“cement” in the life of the nation. Having decided that this organisation should stand alone, the Government now wish to embed it in the most clunky, heavy and difficult-to-change charitable structure that can be found. That puts this organisation in yet another unique situation. Unlike the rest of the voluntary sector, which is having to become more efficient and effective, to collaborate, to draw up strategic alliances and to become much more lithe and nimble all round, this organisation is to be put into a structure which is almost impossible to change. We should therefore have a thoroughgoing look at this. Other Members on these Benches will talk about the effects of being a royal charter body and the extent to which services run through such bodies are extremely difficult to change.

The Minister prayed in aid the fact that to be a royal charter body means that an organisation will have to account annually to Parliament. I put it to him that for an organisation to receive the level of investment proposed for this one full reporting should be required, but it does not necessarily follow that it has to be locked down as would be the case here.

I started out by being sceptical about the need for the NCS to exist as a separate organisation. I remain doubtful that it needs to be a distinct organisation: its service could be provided by any one of a number of organisations. On balance, I would be happy to accept that the Government should be allowed to let it exist as a separate organisation. I see no reason why it should not exist as a community interest company. As such, it would be required to produce a high standard of accounts. I would prefer to see it incorporated as a charity. The challenge trusts are both and therefore subject to a high degree of public accountability.

I really do not see the need to use the structure proposed. I therefore tabled Amendment 1 and the consequential amendments in this group, which would remove the royal charter body status from the organisation while leaving the Government the option to explore other forms of charitable structure which would enable accountability. I beg to move.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a registered interest as a member of the National Citizen Service Board. In briefly addressing the amendments in my name, I associate myself wholeheartedly with the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble Lords, Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord Maude.

It seems to me that the benefit of having a debate in Committee is to see where we can agree with each other, and I think that many of the amendments have taken on that challenge. There are many improvements that can be made to the way in which the current National Citizen Service is delivered, including greater transparency. It would be quite useful if people would reverse the mirror and say, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if a lot of organisations receiving substantial public funds also had to comply with many of the precepts laid down in the amendments before us this afternoon?”. In other words, it works both ways.

In some cases, young people have been sceptical about the National Citizen Service, questioning whether it should be embedded—I prefer that term to “cemented” —in our structures. I am keen for organisations that work with these young people to monitor and publish evidence and material about both the impact on the young people and the spread of young people who are reached in the way that is quite rightly being asked of the National Citizen Service. I say “quite rightly” because it receives substantial sums of money. I do not think that it helps for the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, to talk about rolling up money. I used to ask previous Chancellors—not least Gordon Brown—not to do this. When I was at the Department for Education, he had a meeting with me and told me that in the next spending round education would get £19 billion. Unfortunately, it was over three years and was cumulative, and therefore it did not quite have the impact that £19 billion might have done. We are doing the same now with the National Citizen Service.

I want to say why I think that, difficult though it may be to implement the royal charter, it is better than having an NDPB. Making the National Citizen Service a government scheme with, effectively, a government department would be the biggest possible turn-off for young people and would make it extremely difficult for it to have a relationship with the dozens—in fact, scores—of good, professional and effective organisations that constitute the delivery mechanisms at NCS. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to that but then suggested at the end of her speech that, although she did not oppose retaining NCS, it is an organisation which commissions, monitors and oversees, ensuring quality and consistency, but which in itself is not the delivery mechanism. All the good organisations that many of us in this Committee are associated with are the ones that are delivering.

Those who have at times worked with and spoken to the young people engaged in the National Citizen Service know that, as we said at Second Reading, that is just one part of a much bigger jigsaw in terms of the journey that young people make before they reach the relevant age for National Citizen Service. Also crucial is what happens afterwards with regard to part-time and full-time volunteering options, and the ability of young people to understand what their experience has meant to them, as well as, importantly, what it has been able to deliver for others.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lords I referred to a moment ago help to clarify that the Government cannot have their cake and eat it. If the Government want, understandably, to be engaged in the appointment of the chair, it will be quite inappropriate for a government representative—or, for that matter, an opposition representative—to be on the board. The process should be transparent, independent and open in the way that we seek for many other organisations. Incidentally, regrettably, there has been a drift over the last six years towards a hegemony where even those more transparent methods of recruitment have drifted into departmental pressure and something more than oversight. Many noble Lords on this Committee will be painfully aware of examples that they have come across where pressure has been brought to bear.

We must protect NCS, and its delivery and engagement with young people, from any suggestion that it is a government-operated organisation or subject to government appointments in that way. I hope that by the time we reach Report and Third Reading, we will not have to move amendments that reverse the situation as laid out by the Government at the moment on the issue of the appointments procedure. I also hope that by the time we reach Report we will have some idea about the transition arrangements. Although the Minister did write, as promised, after Second Reading, I do not think we are any clearer as to what the transition arrangements are than we were three weeks ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I take my noble friend’s point. I agree that above a certain level—which is, as my noble friend Lady Finn said, what happens in this case if it goes above the Prime Minister’s salary—it goes to the chief secretary. I think the answer is that we will have to come back to this and make sure that what I have said is correct. We can come back to it on Report, if necessary.

[Lord Blunkett]

Can I suggest that we try to find a way through on this, rather than having to have a debate and a Division on Report? If we wish to establish and embed a remuneration committee of the NCS board, and if the Government wish to have a representative on that committee, which they could quite easily do rather than being on the board as a whole, we might be able to square this circle.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. As a general point, I agree with him entirely that we want to find a way through all the issues being raised in debate. The point of today is, in a way, to raise these issues, and I certainly commit to us trying, over the next two weeks until Report, to find our way through everything so that we can have a very easy Report stage. We will wait and see; we are only on the first group at the moment, so I will move on.

I turn to the subject of non-departmental public bodies and Amendments 14 and 15 from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The body will be incorporated by royal charter and there is nothing in the Bill to say that it will be incorporated as an NDPB, which is not a legal status but a means of classification used by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office has chosen those particular words to describe a body with certain characteristics, but it may use different words in future. None of this is established in legislation, and there seems little need to define a unique category in the Bill only to say that the trust is not in it. However, I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Maude have had rather more experience in government than I, so of course commit to thinking about this before we come back on Report.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned the accounting officer. I can confirm to him that, in practice, the Government will require the trust to have an accounting officer, as set out in the government guidelines, Managing Public Money. The chief executive will be the accounting officer, as the noble Lord suggested, and will be the person to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. I am not sure about the Permanent Secretary in this arrangement, but I will check and come back to him.

The noble Lord is right that the Bill does not explicitly mention an accounting officer, but we are prepared to think about how that could be clarified. In doing so, we will have to take on my noble friend Lord Maude’s point about how not having an accounting officer is crucial to making the organisation acceptable. I commit to thinking about that and coming back. In practice, there will be an accounting officer: the chief executive.

On the noble Lord’s second amendment in the group, in the case of serious operational or financial issues with the trust’s provider network or staff, the accounting officer would normally be the individual responsible for informing the Government. However, we have left this open in the Bill in case the accounting officer was absent at a precise moment and needed to delegate this function to another officer. If this flexibility were not available, the trust might risk delaying its notification of the Government. As provided for in the Bill, the trust—that is, the members of the board—has that responsibility.

Finally in this group, your Lordships will be relieved to hear, I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for tabling his amendment, as we talk again about the functions of the trust and its governance. We entirely agree with the point that the NCS Trust must not be encumbered by excessive regulation. The royal charter and the Bill have been drafted to ensure operational autonomy for the trust, and we must be sure that its governance arrangements complement this intention.

The amendment aims to prevent a cumbersome process for amending the royal charter and clarifies the role of—or inserts a role for—the Charity Commission. However, the NCS Trust, as a royal charter body, will be a public body. This is an essential point. As it is not a charity, it will not be subject to regulation by the Charity Commission at all, and I suggest that the Charity Commission will have no desire to get involved. The charter contains provision for how it may be amended, without any role for the Charity Commission. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured that the existing amendment process is simpler than he fears.

The amendment would also introduce a process for amending by-laws, again with the good intention of streamlining the process. In fact, we have no intention of introducing an extra set of regulations for the body in the form of by-laws. The royal charter gives the trust a broad-ranging power to do anything calculated to facilitate, or incidental or conducive to, the carrying out of any of its functions. It is also expressly given full autonomy over its own procedures. This leaves it with more freedom than if it had further regulation in the form of by-laws.

I know that my noble friend has come across examples of charities that have experienced the cumbersome side of royal charter regulation, but in this case, the body in question is not subject to charity regulation and will be regulated only by the charter and the contents of the Bill. I hope that I have provided sufficient clarification on this point so that all noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I have no amendments in this group, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for speaking briefly. It is unarguable that we should have the maximum transparency for the new body and sensible measures of comparability. We should be able to take account of value for money and impact, although those are two separate things: value for money is crucial in the wise use of public expenditure, whereas impact—this is why the longitudinal study is so important —is what happens down the line. I just caution the voluntary sector to be careful what it wishes for in terms of other organisations receiving varying amounts of public funding while requiring for others what they might find difficult for themselves.

To put that in context, in the last Parliament I was asked and was happy to be the transitional first chair of Youth United, which sought to bring together the uniformed organisations to increase impact in areas of deprivation. The need to do that, pressed by His Royal Highness Prince Charles, was that, on the whole, those areas of great deprivation were not covered in the same way and the impact was not as great as would be expected or desired. Some of the money that went in came from the LIBOR fines. When those fines are levied, they become public expenditure, albeit, as we might describe it, as “the Chancellor’s slush fund”, where there is as little transparency and openness as I have ever come across, in bidding processes or in acknowledgement of what has happened to the money down the line.

I just counsel that we build in the necessary requirements to ensure that money is used extremely wisely and we do not, to use the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, go down the road of Kids Company. We need to be clear what we expect of the outcomes. As I tried to say on Second Reading, that is not just about numerical targets; it is about outcome measures as to how the impact is held on to, in terms of those young people—where they have come from, where they go to and their participation post the NCS experience. I just repeat: for big and small organisations alike, be careful what you wish for.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, those are wise words and they will ring in the ear long after my noble friend Lord Blunkett has uttered them. We should bear them in mind throughout this debate.

I do not want to say much about this, because the purpose of these probing amendments is to invite the Minister to reflect on how he wishes to take this forward and we should listen to him carefully. I will make two points. First, what is decided about the reporting functions must be the corollary of what we have decided about the structure. Rather than repeating the debate on the first amendment last week, I think that it is obvious that, if the structure adopted is the royal charter body, for example, it will bring with it the implications of a non-departmental public body. Therefore, the auditing by the NAO will be brought to the Public Accounts Committee and there will be a virtuous cycle of accounting and reporting, which we are well used to and will probably cover one aspect of this.

On the points that have been made more generally, this organisation will serve a much wider public purpose than simply to operate a number of courses or to commission those courses. The report is to Parliament, which raises much wider questions about what you would need to do. As has rightly been said, many of these measures are not numerical, so it would be interesting and challenging to see how one could frame that in a way that would both be a formal account—a measure of the consumption of resources and the impact of those resources in terms of diversity and reach—and provide information that will allow those who have to engage with this body to anticipate and work closely together with it. I echo the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, about the need for a broader cut through this—not just an annual report, but a commissioned report looking at some of the wider indices. That might be annual, but I agree that it perhaps needs to happen a bit later. That might be a way of framing this. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the matter.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blunkett]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out “with” and insert—
“(1A) The NCS Trust is to consist of—(a) the chair,(b) the chief executive, and(c) at least 8, but not more than 10, other members.(1B) The chair and the members within subsection (1A)(c) are referred to in this section as the non-executive members.(1C) The Royal Charter which establishes the NCS Trust under subsection (1) must provide for the establishment of a remuneration committee.(1D) The Royal Charter which establishes the NCS Trust under subsection (1) must—(a) require that the appointment of the chair is made on a recommendation from the Prime Minister which results from an appointment process which complies with the requirements set out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments;(b) require that the non-executive members of the NCS Trust, other than the chair, are appointed by the chair of the NCS Trust after a fair, open and merit-based competition under criteria agreed by the Prime Minister and subject to his or her approval; and(c) provide that none of the members of the NCS Trust shall be representatives of Her Majesty’s Government, but that a representative of Her Majesty’s Government shall be permitted to sit on the remuneration committee established in accordance with subsection (1C).(1E) The NCS Trust has”

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. In moving the amendment in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the noble Lord, Lord Maude, I want to put on record my appreciation and thanks to the Minister for his considerable courtesy and his preparedness to listen and have a dialogue with his own ministerial colleagues in relation to this and other amendments today. In passing, although this is not a gripe against the Minister in any way, it is unfortunate that his noble friends who are responsible for business have not heard of something called the “dinner break”, which neither is a dinner break nor allows people to have dinner.

I shall try to set an example and be brief because we debated this at Second Reading and we debated the issues at length in Committee. There was considerable consensus that it would be right to allow the Government to have a nominee, which would fulfil the objectives that the Government laid out in relation to the remuneration to be offered to staff working on the National Citizen Service and, subsequently—I agree with this—on the audit and risk committee in relation to avoiding the misuse of substantial sums of public money. It is in that spirit that I move the amendment. Again, I recognise the care with which the Government, in the form of the Minister, have been prepared to respond to this and to my noble friends on other amendments on the Marshalled List today. This would mean a fair, open and merit-based competition for non-executives and the ability of the Government to get their own way in terms of having a nominee on the committees of the NCS, but would not place the National Citizen Service in the erroneous position of being seen by families, young people and providers as presenting a government scheme determined, directed and therefore shaped by the Government, rather than the actual position of the NCS.

In the debate on Monday on the size, shape and nature of this House the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said that it was at its best when dealing with—I paraphrase—non-controversial legislation. I hope that I will be able to say on Third Reading that the House has been at its best in shaping this non-controversial legislation in the interests not of the Government or Opposition, but of young people. I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in support of the amendment, to which I have added my name. Its purpose is to encourage the Government to bring forward some firm plans on how to address some of the points raised in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Maude, and others, who were firmly of the view that the Government had got it slightly wrong in terms of its overall structure—so much so that it would put people off from joining the NCS, which would be a bad thing. I hope to hear proposals from the Minister that might resolve that problem.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his brief remarks. I am thankful to both of them for making themselves available for meetings to discuss this, and I think we can agree a way forward.

We must, I believe, strike a balance. On the one hand we agree that we must give the organisation all the independence we can. It needs freedom to innovate, maintain its strong brand among young people and forge its own path. Young people must not feel the NCS is something that government does to them; they must want to go on it. At the same time, the Government have a duty to protect public money. Unsatisfactory or wasteful use of public money could kill the programme as surely as too close an association with the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made a helpful suggestion in Committee for how we might strike this balance. He suggests that we do not have a government representative on the board but that a government representative is involved where appropriate and necessary for the Government to exercise oversight.

The provisions on the government representative are in the charter, so I can commit to amending article 5 to remove the requirement for a government representative on the board. All board members will be appointed through a transparent and open process in line with OCPA procedures. Article 8 of the charter will retain the existing provision for a government representative on the remuneration committee of the organisation. As article 5 will no longer include the government representative, article 8 will be amended to state that the government representative is to be appointed by the Secretary of State in consultation with the chair. The government representative will have to approve the pay policy—not individual awards—of the trust, as included in the current draft. A sponsoring department always needs to have the ability to approve pay policy, in accordance with Managing Public Money.

We will also add an additional article to the charter. This will specify that there must be an audit and risk committee and that there must be a government representative on that committee. We want to be ambitious for the NCS and this necessarily means that the trust will handle a significant amount of public money. To fulfil its responsibilities towards public money, the Government need to be satisfied that the right procedures to manage that money are in place. We must also ensure that all board appointments meet the high standards expected of public appointees. The Prime Minister is responsible for recommending appointments to the Queen, and the Secretary of State will ensure an appropriate level of government involvement in the recruitment process, including government representation on recruitment panels for board members, in line with the code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies.

Together these measures will ensure sufficient government oversight, while allowing the NCS the freedom to have an independent board to lead the organisation. I hope that, with these commitments to amend the royal charter, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Blunkett]

My Lords, I ought to have declared an interest as I did at Second Reading and in Committee as a non-remunerated member of the NCS board. I am grateful to the Minister and I consequently beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker]

If the noble Lord will allow me to finish, I am going to come to the point about commencement, which is what this amendment is about.

I simply wish to say that the level of financial and other reporting which the NCS Trust has given so far has been found to be inadequate by the Public Accounts Committee, which has asked the trust to provide a timetable and an action plan to put in place the governance, leadership and expertise necessary to deliver the expansion of this project.

We have argued from these Benches that citizenship and civic participation are important, but we raised these questions throughout the passage of the Bill and we did not get answers. They are fundamental to the capacity of the organisation to deliver this scheme.

The Bill should not be commenced. Its commencement should be delayed until all the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee have been fulfilled and a report has been provided to Parliament, and until the governance, management, planning and performance of the National Citizen Service Trust and the Challenge Network have been independently evaluated and a report produced. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee should hold an inquiry into the role of Ministers and officials, just as it did with Kids Company. The transformation of the NCS into a royal charter body should be delayed until its eligibility can be proven.

In the meantime, the trust should be enabled to run its 2017 programme and it should be informed that its tenure and the remainder of its contract will be subject to the fulfilment of the criteria I have just mentioned. The National Citizen Service is a worthwhile enterprise. The body it has been entrusted to is not yet fit for purpose and a great deal of public funding is going to be staked on an organisation which so far has proven itself unable to deliver. On that basis, the Bill should not go ahead.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interests in this area as a board member. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has raised some rational points in relation to the Public Accounts Committee, and they should be taken seriously. But to say that these matters have not been addressed and then to say in the next breath, “I have addressed them throughout the passage of the Bill and did not receive answers”, beggars belief.

I sat in Committee and on Report, as other Members of the House did, and heard the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, quite rightly, repeatedly raising the questions she has raised this afternoon; raising the comparative issues—which are not comparable—with regard to the Scouts; and raising issues in relation to contracting out by the National Citizen Service, which is a commissioning body and contracts out the actual delivery of the service to dozens of organisations in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. The very reason the Bill is before us—and I welcome the two technical amendments —is precisely to ensure that the lessons of the past four years have been learned and will be taken forward.

That is why the noble Baroness’s speech today, together with her numerous interventions in Committee and on Report, which she is perfectly entitled to make, would make a very good speech in favour of the Bill. As I understand it, she welcomes the National Citizen Service, questions the value for money, and raises issues from the Public Accounts Committee, which have not yet been answered, but raises one absolutely fundamental issue: that the long-term outcome measures of the investment in young people engaging with voluntary service and the week’s residential course cannot yet be proved. That is a non sequitur. How can you prove the long-term outcomes at this stage of measures that have been in place for only four years?

On that count alone, and on the count that the measures that the noble Baroness questions have been questioned—even though this afternoon she says they have not been, and have not been answered—we should progress with the Bill, which will set in place an entirely new board and structure. I will not be part of that, but I wish the National Citizen Service well because, although it was not my idea and did not spring from my party, it is a fundamental investment in the well-being of our country and our young people.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long at all. I declare my interest as a serving councillor and as an honorary vice-president of the Local Government Association. I rise simply to ask for some reassurance—it may have been given, but I have not seen it—that the new duties comprised in Amendment 1, which is a perfectly sensible amendment that I support, will be regarded as falling within the new burdens doctrine so that, if local authorities are required to expend more on providing the services identified here, they will be reimbursed by government in accordance with that doctrine.