National Citizen Service Bill [Lords]

Steve Reed Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I will start by returning the compliments paid to me by the Minister. I and my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench are grateful to him for the consensual way in which he has dealt with the Bill. That is important to the future of the National Citizen Service, and to the people from all parties and none who have devoted a considerable amount of time to getting the organisation off the ground. That does not mean to say I do not have comments to make about how it is being run, particularly in the light of the Public Accounts Committee report published this week, but those comments should not be misinterpreted as a lack of support for the organisation or for the consensual way in which the Minister has dealt with this matter. It has been an enormous pleasure to visit NCS groups in my constituency. I have seen the positive difference that they are making to young people in Croydon North, as well as to young people across the rest of the country.

The Bill sets up a royal charter that provides a statutory underpinning to the NCS. It does not set up the NCS, because it already exists. It does not agree funding levels, as they are decided by the Government in their spending review. Labour supports the Bill because it believes the NSC has a great deal to offer young people across our country. We want the stronger governance the royal charter will provide, particularly following the concerns about governance, oversight, financial performance and value for money—all issues that we raised in previous stages, but which the Public Accounts Committee report highlighted in flashing lights.

The organisation is due to receive over £1.5 billion of public funding at a time when other youth services up and down the country have lost significant levels of funding. It is important, when so much money goes to any service, that the Government can demonstrate beyond any shadow of a doubt that every penny of public money handed to the NCS is better spent there than every penny cut from thousands of other youth organisations that were also doing good work, many with some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged young people in the country. I will not ask the Minister to respond in detail to every point raised by the PAC, but I would be grateful if he wrote to me and responded to some of the issues I will raise this afternoon.

I agree with the Minister that it is vital that this organisation, like every other publicly funded body, delivers and demonstrates the highest possible level of value for money. The PAC found that the

“Department cannot justify the seemingly high cost per participant of the NCS”.

Given the significant amount of further money pledged to the NCS, that will require a full response in due course from the Minister. The report highlights what appear to be alarmingly high costs per participant: £1,863 per participant is very high, particularly since other funding targeted at the most vulnerable young people has been reduced.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

I would just like to place on record my absolute determination to see a concerted effort to reduce the cost per unit of the NCS bill. We have been looking at that for some time. One reason for the Bill is to make the NCS much more transparent and accountable in line with other organisations that receive public money.

[Mr Reed]

I thank the Minister for those assurances. It is important to put our concerns on the record following the PAC report. I fully understand that he will need some time to look at the report in detail to provide the reassurances that the House and the public will be looking for following its publication. The organisation has declared its intention to reduce spending per participant by about £200, which is significant. It is important to know how savings on this scale can be achieved while maintaining the quality of the service and support it provides.

Concerns, which the PAC report repeated, were raised that the full value of participation targets is not yet being realised. The Government reduced their original targets for the number of young people on the scheme by a third—from 360,000 by 2020, to 247,000. With such a dramatic downward shift, and given the funding going into the organisation, assurances will need to be given that the target can be achieved and that there will be no further downward shift.

Given that local authorities and schools are already active on the ground and know their communities, would Ministers be prepared to reconsider their involvement in delivering the service? At an earlier stage, the relationship was different, and although they still have a role with the NCS perhaps it needs to be reviewed to ensure their full integration into the organisation’s delivery of its services to young people.

The PAC report was critical of the Cabinet Office’s setting up of the trust without appropriate governance arrangements, but I understand that the royal charter to be established will put a governance framework in place. We argued at previous stages that there should be a role for young people in running the trust. I am grateful to the Minister and welcome the comments he made in opening about giving young people a clearer and more direct role on the trust board.

User involvement ensures that organisations remain focused on the needs of their users and do not slip into focusing too much on the needs of the provider. I am pleased to see another good way of making sure that this Government body remains appealing to young people, who will feel they have considerable say in the organisation. I look forward to seeing how the amendment will appear in the royal charter.

I welcome the Minister’s comments on social integration, about which points have been made not just by me but by many of the organisations involved in delivering the NCS. There is broad support among Members and across the sector for the NCS’s important work in encouraging social integration. Bringing together young people from different backgrounds broadens their understanding of their own country and the community of which they form a part, and it helps to build a sense of shared nationhood, which is very important for the future of our country.

It is particularly important that young people from more socially excluded and deprived backgrounds, who might be harder to engage, are fully represented in all the work the NCS does. With the focus on driving up participation, the NCS must not go only for those young people who are easier to engage but who might be in less need of its NCS support than young people from more excluded backgrounds. I know that the Minister shares my view, and I look forward to seeing what further focus is placed on the NCS to ensure that targets are met throughout the project’s delivery.

The internal evaluation of the NCS published last week showed the benefits of the scheme, but the finding that three months after completion of the spring NCS programme there had been no impact on volunteering was of concern. I hope that the Minister will look into that. Getting young people involved in volunteering is one of the key benefits of the NCS, so we need to do more to encourage those who want to give something back to their community and to ensure that they have that chance.

It is very welcome that the Government are going ahead with the youth social action review, whose chairman was named just this week. We welcome the appointment of Steve Holliday and look forward to hearing his recommendations by October.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions the full time social action review. Does he share the hope of many of us that the Government will look at full-time volunteering and come up with as many creative ideas as possible?

[Mr Reed]

Absolutely. It is important that the Government identify and try to remove possible barriers to involvement in full-time volunteering. We hope that the review led by Steve Holliday will produce some proposals.

Let me reassure the House that the points that my colleagues and I have raised are intended to help the NCS to develop and improve. We want it to succeed. We believe in the young people of this country, and we believe that the NCS can have, and is having, a real impact on those who take part in its programmes. It builds their confidence, exposes them to other young people from different backgrounds, builds valuable life skills, and strengthens their understanding of the community and what it means to be part of it. However, we also believe in value for money. There clearly needs to be a tighter grip. Given that so many cuts are now affecting young people, the NCS needs to succeed for every young person in the country.

I hope that the Bill, and the royal charter it establishes, will enable the NCS to move forward, and will help young people throughout the country to achieve their potential and become the very best they can be.