Steve Reed
Main Page: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)National Citizen Service Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)
Steve Reed ExcerptsTuesday 24th January 2017
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate National Citizen Service Act 2017 View all National Citizen Service Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 24 January 2016 - (24 Jan 2017)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room. I now come on to a very long speech, I am afraid, colleagues. The deadline for amendments to be considered at this Thursday’s sitting of the Committee was rise of the House yesterday. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room and on the website. This shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue.
A Member who has put their name to the leading amendment in a group is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on all or any of the amendments in that group. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate. At the end of a debate on a group of amendments I shall call the Member who moved the leading amendment again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate whether they wish to withdraw the amendment or to seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press any other amendment or a new clause in a group to a vote they need to let me know. I shall work on the assumption that the Minister wishes the Committee to seek a decision on all Government amendments if any are tabled.
Please note that decisions on amendments do not take place in the order that they are debated but in the order they appear on the amendment paper. In other words, debate occurs according to the selection and grouping list. Decisions are taken when we come to the clause that the amendment affects. I shall use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules following the debates on the relevant amendments. I hope that that explanation is helpful.
Clause 1
National Citizen Service Trust
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, after “society” insert “and encourage social integration”
This amendment emphasises the need for the NCS Trust to encourage social integration as part of its primary functions.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 5, in clause 1, page 1, line 15, after “England” insert “, in particular hard-to-reach young people”
This amendment introduces, as a primary function of the NCS Trust, the need particularly to target ‘hard-to-reach’ young people.
Mr Reed
Thank you, Mr Walker. I will put on record at the beginning of the debate that my party is delighted to support the Bill. We think it will play a very important role in the life of the country going forward. It is important that young people are given the chance to develop skills and interests that will support them well through the rest of their lives—not just into employment, although of course that is a primary concern, but for their wider well-being and for the enjoyment of their lives and leisure time, enabling them to make a positive contribution to society, of which each of them is a very important member. For those reasons and many more we very much support the Bill.
Amendment 4 seeks to strengthen one of the most important features of the National Citizen Service—its promotion of social integration and how it seeks to bring together young people from differing backgrounds who would never otherwise have the opportunity to meet, particularly during their early, formative years. If the shared society is to mean something, it must mean something to young people from different social backgrounds and different parts of the country who can all come together and develop a better understanding of what they have in common and how they can use those new bonds to make a difference to their own lives and to the country. NCS has a very big role to play in strengthening a common identity for young people, but we want to make sure that the legislation will enable that to happen to the absolute maximum.
Amendment 4 reflects the broad support on Second Reading for the work of NCS in encouraging social integration. The Minister said that he was willing to consider the arguments for protecting and strengthening that further in legislation, which is the spirit behind the amendment. The Bill and the draft royal charter mention social cohesion, but cohesion is not an outcome; it is the process. Although that difference may seem fine, it is very important because, without focusing on integration, we will not secure the greater cohesion we want to deliver. Social cohesion is one of the defining challenges of our time. Last year showed us many things and one was how divided this country is, in many senses right down the middle. That makes the role of the National Citizen Service all the more important in trying to bridge that divide and to bring this country back together.
Young people from different backgrounds living, working, eating and facing challenges together is incredibly important, and not just young people from different parts of the country. My experience in south London, as a council leader previously, and today as a Member of Parliament, is that too many young people and too many of our communities lead parallel lives that never come together. Young people living on an estate in relatively poor circumstances, many of them not knowing any adults in long-term, secure, well-paid employment, may grow up believing their future to be incredibly limited and constrained compared with other young people living in nearby streets whose parents work and whose friends are in good employment. They may grow up with very different expectations.
Those young people may pass one another in the street or sit on the same bus together, but their lives never meaningfully meet. It is important that NCS can play a role in bringing those two communities together. Those young people are all part of the same country. They need to feel that they have the same stake in our country and to be equipped to contribute to it to the best of their ability so that they can meet their full potential. We seek to amend the Bill slightly to allow that to take place. The process is necessary to achieve a cohesive community, which we believe will be one of the foundations for the Prime Minister’s shared society. Indeed, she referred to that in her recent speech when the Minister was present.
Amendment 5 seeks to ensure a specific mention for young people from harder-to-reach backgrounds because it is important that they continue to play a full role in the National Citizen Service alongside young people who are perhaps easier to reach. A common theme on Second Reading, raised on both sides of the House, was that we want young people from all backgrounds to continue to have full access to the benefits and opportunities of the National Citizen Service.
The Minister was correct in saying the proportion of NCS participants from a free-school-meals background is higher than in the general population. That is welcome, of course, but the number of young people from that background taking part has fallen from 23% in 2011 to 17% in 2014. That, if not arrested, is a danger, which the trust and those involved in running NCS are focusing on correcting. We do not, however, want participation targets to be met by accessing young people who already have the capacity to participate and therefore miss young people from harder-to-reach backgrounds who might benefit even more from taking part in the National Citizen Service if they continue to have those opportunities.
The purpose of the amendments is to strengthen and support the Bill. The Bill has our full support, but it is still possible to improve it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Rob Wilson)
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Walker? I thank all members of the Committee for joining in the scrutiny of the Bill today. I was delighted on Second Reading to hear Members from both sides of the House endorse the National Citizen Service so strongly, often based on their personal experience in their constituencies. All the discussion today, as begun by the hon. Member for Croydon North, will be motivated by the aim to make NCS the best possible experience for young people in our country. I am grateful to hon. Members for raising the topic of social integration. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said,
“A central challenge of our times is to overcome division and bring our country together.”
I believe NCS has enormous potential in that area and is already showing its strength in bringing together people from different backgrounds. To echo a point made on Second Reading by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), when one visits an NCS programme one can see young people from very different backgrounds at either end—literally—of a rope.
The 2015 Ipsos MORI evaluation of the programme found that eight out of 10 NCS participants feel more positive about people from different backgrounds after they have been on the programme. The Bill and the charter must, and will, ensure that that remains a core part of NCS. Indeed, article 3.1 of the royal charter sets a primary function for the NCS Trust to provide programmes
“with the purpose of enabling participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities to participate in projects to benefit society”.
The charter goes on to say at article 3.4.a that one of the objectives of the trust in exercising its function is
“to promote social cohesion by ensuring equality of access to the programmes by participants regardless of their background or circumstances”.
It makes it clear that an essential element of NCS is that participants from different backgrounds work together. That is in practical language what social integration means on NCS. The Bill would ensure that Government, Parliament and the public can hold the NCS Trust to account for its success in that area.
Clause 6, which we will come to later, sets as one of the specific reporting requirements
“the extent to which participants from different backgrounds have worked together in those programmes”.
The Bill and the charter, although they do not use the precise words, cover the need for social integration as an integral part of NCS in future, as it is now. Both consciously use language that describes what social integration actually means in the context of NCS: participants from different backgrounds working together.
We want the Bill to remain in plain English and to avoid packing it with too many conceptual terms or buzzwords. If we add “social integration” we could add many other phrases such as “social cohesion”, “social inclusion”, “social mobility”, “social engagement” and so on. Instead, the functions listed in the charter and the Bill should focus on what the trust should actually be doing; in effect, doing what it says on the tin.
Although we agree entirely with the underlying principles of the amendment, I do not think it would add anything to the Bill that is not already sufficiently covered. However, I will commit, without guarantees, to look at whether we might be able to capture the importance of social integration any better in the royal charter. I will look at the royal charter, but the Government do not support the amendment because the phrase “social integration” would not add anything meaningful to the Bill.
On the second amendment, I am again grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon North for raising the importance of engaging with hard-to-reach young people. It brings me back to the key principle of the NCS—that it must be accessible to all. NCS participants leave home to stay with other young people from different schools, streets and towns. That is part of what makes the NCS experience so special. Social mixing sits at the heart of the trust’s functions, as set out in full in the royal charter. The trust must enable participants from different backgrounds to work together.
Article 3.4.a of the charter specifies that, in exercising its functions the trust must ensure
“equality of access to the programmes by participants regardless of their background or circumstances”.
To bring together people from different backgrounds, it will have to promote the programme across the country. It will have to work with its providers, schools, local authorities and other youth sector organisations to make sure that young people know about the programme and that there is a place for them, regardless of their circumstances. That is our manifesto commitment and that is what is hardwired into the Bill and into the charter.
Mr Reed
I thank the Minister for his response to my questions and I recognise what he said about looking again—without guarantees, sadly. However, the willingness to look again at the royal charter is welcome. We would be happy to work with the Minister on that basis.
It is important the Bill continues to enjoy cross-party support in the way it has so far. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Wilson
I will be brief, but there are a couple of issues that need to be drawn out. Clause 1 defines the NCS Trust for the purposes of the Bill. In the Bill, “NCS Trust” simply means the body that will be incorporated in the royal charter. The draft royal charter for the trust has been laid before the House, and the charter is the trust’s key constitutional document. It works together with the Bill, which creates a framework of accountability for the new charter body. The primary functions of the trust are laid out in the royal charter and repeated in clause 1 as part of the definition of the NCS Trust. The functions lay out the trust’s core purpose, which is to arrange the delivery of the NCS programme and, of course, to promote it.
Clause 1 specifies key outcomes that the trust will be tasked to pursue in order to achieve these primary functions. The NCS programme must aim to bring people together from different backgrounds, as we have discussed; the programme must also enhance the skills of participants and enable them to work on projects to benefit society. That expresses the essence of what NCS aims to achieve.
For the purposes of clause 1—and this why I particularly wanted to deal with this now—there is a definition of young people. It means 16 and 17-year-olds, but it can also include 15-year-olds or people who are between 18 and 24. That reflects the way in which the royal charter defines which young people the NCS programmes must be available to. The charter ensures that the programmes are always available to 16 and 17-year-olds: the core group for NCS. However, at its discretion, the trust may allow children who are 15 or 18 to 24 on the programme. That reflects its current practice and is designed for exceptional circumstances when someone is unable to do the programme when they are 16 or 17. For example, they may have a learning disability, or perhaps they have caring responsibilities—something of that nature.
Part of NCS’s strength is that it provides a common experience at a particular age; we will not, therefore, broaden the normal age range. The NCS Trust will not proactively recruit participants who are over 17. Part of the strength of NCS is that it brings people together to share a common experience at a distinct point in time, at a formative stage of their life—in this case, post GCSE—but not every 16 or 17-year-old will be able to participate. For example, it may be more appropriate for a young person who has a disability to take part when they are slightly older. That is why the charter, as reflected in clause 1, gives the trust discretion to allow young people aged 15 to 25 participate. We want NCS to be available to any young person aged 16 or 17 who wants a place, and the provision is an important part of ensuring that that is the case.
Clause 1 specifies that “young people” in the Bill means those residents who are receiving education or training in England. The NCS Trust will arrange for the delivery of NCS only in England and, as I said, it is important that it is open to any young person in this country as per the manifesto commitment. That includes refugees and people who are living, training or receiving education in England. Clause 1, therefore, is essential: it provides the key definitions and should stand part of the Bill.
Mr Reed
The Minister has anticipated my questions about the potential for using the wider age range to meet participation targets if that was not met within the normal age range. On the basis of what the Minister has said, I am reassured and support the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Transfer Schemes
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Wilson
Clause 2 introduces schedule 1, and I would like to deal with both provisions together. Clause 2 contains power for the Secretary of State to make a transfer scheme for transferring the assets, liabilities and staff of the current NCS Trust to the new body being established by the royal charter. Without this clause, the transfer to the new body would not be overseen by Government. The existing trust would essentially have to oversee its own transfer, issuing contracts and reemploying its staff which would obviously be extremely longwinded and very inefficient. Schedule 1 has been drafted to ensure Government can oversee a transition that is managed effectively and over an appropriate period of time. The trust will change from a community interest company to a public body: it is right that Government take responsibility for its set-up to ensure an orderly transition with all the necessary safeguards.
Schedule 1 contains further detail on the transfer powers and is essential to achieve a smooth transition from community interest company to royal charter body. The royal charter will incorporate a new charter body, but we want the NCS Trust to transition seamlessly from one form into the other.
First, schedule 1 allows the Secretary of State to make a staff transfer scheme to transfer the staff of the community interest company to the royal charter body. The transfer will follow the principles of TUPE regulations as appropriate, but giving effect to the transfer via a specific scheme allows a straightforward and orderly approach to the transfer. That is good for the staff and good for the business of NCS. The scheme will ensure that terms and conditions for employees are maintained as appropriate. The schedule also includes a power for the scheme to provide for employees to be regarded as having been in continuous employment, despite the break between bodies. The schedule requires the Secretary of State to be satisfied that staff and other people likely to be affected by the transfer, as well as their representatives, have been consulted before making a transfer scheme. The Secretary of State must have regard to the result of that consultation in determining whether to make the transfer scheme.
Secondly, schedule 1 allows the Secretary of State to make a property transfer scheme that can give effect to the transfer of property, rights and liabilities of the community interest body to the charter body. The scheme would allow for continuity of business for the community interest company. In particular, the contracts between the NCS Trust and its regional delivery partners can be transferred using this power. In summary, the schedule provides powers that will allow an orderly transition between the community interest company and the royal charter body, with all the necessary safeguards to ensure that employees and third parties are not unfairly prejudiced by the transfer.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 3
Finance
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Wilson
Clause 3 allows the Government to fund the NCS Trust out of money approved by Parliament. NCS is a Government-funded programme. It was piloted in-house by the Cabinet Office before the NCS Trust was set up to grow it, funded by a grant made under the Charities Act 2006. The majority of the Government’s controls have been in the grant agreements, re-negotiated each year with the trust. As NCS grows and becomes a more permanent feature of society, the Government need to establish a new legal relationship with the trust.
As a public body, the trust will receive grant in aid funding, which is the normal way such bodies are funded by the Government. All the necessary Government controls and parliamentary oversight will have been agreed, allowing for a more straightforward and arm’s length grant agreement. In this case, the royal charter will set out the trust’s constitution and the Bill sets out many of the conditions to which it must adhere, such as producing an annual report each year. There will be no need to re-draft these elements each time a grant is renewed. The Government and Parliament’s financial relationship with the trust will be simpler, more transparent and much more secure.
Clause 3 is a crucial part of the Bill. NCS will continue to be a publicly funded body charged with delivering the Government’s commitment to provide a place on NCS for every young person who wants one. Clearly, the clause does not bind future Governments to any maximum or minimum amount of funding for NCS, but an essential component of the Bill is to give the Secretary of State the power to fund the trust.
Mr Reed
We welcome the fact the Government have chosen to put funding into an organisation that is providing such benefits to young people. That would be welcome at any time, but it is particularly welcome at a time of austerity, when we are seeing funding for youth services and activities across civil society, let alone the public sector, fall in ways that have made it difficult for many of those organisations to continue providing a service.
There has been criticism in some quarters about the amount of money going to NCS, relative to the cuts elsewhere. I will not repeat those comments, because the right thing to do is welcome the fact that the Government are funding NCS to a level that will allow it to do what it sets out to achieve. That is undoubtedly a benefit to young people and we wholly welcome it.
However, a recent National Audit Office report raised concerns about the funding for NCS, which I am sure the Minister is looking at. In the context of the clause, I would welcome hearing the Minister put on the record his approach to some of the challenges raised by the NAO. That is important, because every penny of public money that is spent anywhere must be fully scrutinised so that we are confident that it is delivering the maximum value, and not just to taxpayers but to the young people and others who will benefit from these services.
The NAO report was published a few days before Second Reading and the Government did not have an opportunity to respond to it before then, so I would welcome a statement from the Minister on whether the Government will provide a full response. The report states:
“The NCS has cost more per participant than was anticipated and needs to reduce by 29%, to remain within the Spending Review limit.”
What steps is the Minister taking with the trust to ensure that spending comes down to the level it should be at, and when will that happen? What assurances do we have that the quality of the programme will not fall if costs need to be cut by nearly a third? Young people signing up for this programme need assurances about what they are going to receive. Given the NAO’s concerns, young people might have some doubts in their minds about what might be made available to them.
Mr Reed
One of the problems with such a consensual Bill is that I find myself in the happy position of agreeing with what the Government are proposing. I am sorry that the Minister has had a lot of talking to do, but we are happy with the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Annual report etc
Mr Reed
I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 6, page 3, line 9, at end insert—
“(i) the measures taken to encourage scheme participants to play a role in governance and the extent to which this leads to direct representation within the formal governance arrangements of the NCS Trust,
(j) the extent to which participation in the programmes has led to long-term volunteering by NCS graduates.”
This amendment encourages participants of the scheme to take part in the continued governance of the Trust. It also ensures the report includes information on the longer term volunteering by NCS graduates.
I am delighted to give the Minister a moment to catch his breath and sort his notes out. I hope that he will also listen to a further attempt by my party to strengthen and improve aspects of the Bill. The amendment seeks to do two things: first, to strengthen the voice of participants within the governance of NCS so that it can better reflect, now and in future, the aspirations, ambitions and experiences of young people right the way through the organisation; and secondly, to strengthen the Government’s approach to long-term volunteering. It makes little sense to equip young people to play a more active role in society if we do not fully recognise and support their longer term activities in the way NCS and all of us involved in it hope it will do. The amendment, which is a probing amendment at this stage, seeks to strengthen those two aspects. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and then we will see how we take it from there.
On Second Reading, I and many of my colleagues made the point that, since the Prime Minster has flagged up this measure as a key element of her shared society, a shared society cannot simply be imposed. It requires power itself to be shared more widely if we want to build a truly shared society. One of the failings of many provider organisations in state and public sectors is that they fail to give their own users a voice. They become very focused on the interest and experience of the people working in the provision of a particular service, and over time they can detach themselves from the lived experiences of the people who are intended to benefit from those services.
In the private sector, customers can choose to go elsewhere to secure the things they want and businesses will go bust. When an organisation is funded by the state, without mechanisms to keep linking the service back to the people using it, it can grow remote from what is being offered, and the public money that is put in can become less efficiently used than might otherwise be the case. We seek to anchor NCS in the needs of its users—young people—into the future. That is how it will meet its participation targets, which the NAO has warned it might otherwise miss. It is important that young people have a real voice in what NCS does and how it does it.
When the Minister responded to similar comments I made on Second Reading, he pointed to the national youth board, which is an extremely important part of NCS’s infrastructure, and important for bringing feedback from across the country back to the trust as it deliberates and makes decisions on where it goes in future. We would encourage the trust to go further. If we believe, as I do, that a shared society requires a share in power, consultation is often not enough. Consultation with users is not enough because the people with the power doing the consulting can choose not to listen to what they hear, so the consultation can prove to be fake. They can stop listening to the users if there is not a strong enough mechanism to connect them back to the young people who will be using the organisation.
A far better way is to seek ways to equalise power between the provider interest and users within any organisation, including this one. We want to have a greater user voice for young people at the top of the trust, which is an approach that needs to be expanded across public services more widely. Perhaps that is something the Prime Minister and the Government will look at as they shape the shared society.
There are other good examples in youth services. Step Up To Serve is another organisation supported by the Government. I have had the privilege of taking part in a board meeting of that organisation and seeing how it works. It has cross-party support. Like NCS, it is Government-backed, but it has five young trustees on its full board. They are there, as the Step Up To Serve websites states, to
“use the skills and knowledge gained from their own journey to influence the campaign and represent the views of young people.”
I believe that NCS would benefit from exactly the same approach as Step Up To Serve.
When I was leader of a council just across the river, I helped to set up the Young Lambeth Cooperative, which became, I believe, one of the biggest community youth trusts in the country.
Mr Reed
I did not want to be prescriptive at this stage; I was merely putting down the marker that users need direct representation on the board, so that the organisation is anchored in the needs and interests of the people it exists to serve. We can have conversations, but they should not just be between politicians; we should be involving the organisation and its users in taking decisions about its governance as we move forward.
When I was involved in setting up the Young Lambeth Cooperative, which became, I believe, one of the largest community youth trusts in the country, the set-up was intended to support neighbourhoods experiencing severe problems with violent youth crime. That meant young people who were picking up knives, picking up guns and dealing in drugs. People on some estates in that community knew young people by name who had been killed as the result of very high levels of violent youth activity in particular neighbourhoods.
The council was spending hundreds of thousands of pounds—if not more—every year trying to solve a problem, but it was getting worse because the council was not listening enough to the views of the people living with the problem and whose young people were getting involved, as well as to those young people themselves. Very often, those people have a far better understanding of what is going wrong in their community, and in the access they have to opportunity, which then causes these problems to grow out of control, as they sometimes do.
The organisation was set up in a way that gave those communities a significant role in the organisation’s governance. That came about through elections to an assembly that owned the trust, so making sure young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds had a real say, while 50% of the board was comprised of young people from affected neighbourhoods. This meant they could directly bring to bear their experience of what was affecting them and their peers, pulling them into lifestyles they did not want to be taken into. Without that experience at the heart of the organisation’s decision making, it would not have had the credibility or the understanding to make the difference it could make in using the public money it had access to, as well as other sources of funding.
It made a difference in that case and there are many other examples up and down the country where embedding the voice of the user by giving them real power in an organisation can dramatically improve the outcome. Again, I do not wish to be prescriptive about this, but I hope the Minister will consider looking at similar models that ensure the voice of young people can be heard at the top of the organisation, not on licence from those who happen to sit on the board but as a right in the rooms where decisions are being taken.
My second point relates to volunteering. On Second Reading, I was taken by the comments of Members on both sides who pointed to the importance of the volunteering skills and experience that young people develop and how that develops—we already see it—into a desire to take part in volunteering and community activism in their adult lives as well. That will be a hugely important legacy of NCS if it achieves the potential it undoubtedly has.
NCS is well evaluated, but we are still waiting for the 2015 evaluation report. The Bill aims to strengthen accountability, but the measures miss the opportunities available to young people after they leave the programme. The purpose of amendment 6 is to ask the trust to make clear whether NCS experience has led to long-term volunteering. If we get it right, one of the organisation’s key measures of success has to be the legacy it will leave in every community where young people have the opportunity to participate.
Graduates of the scheme overwhelmingly say they want more opportunities to volunteer. Nine out of 10 graduates say they want to go back and help develop NCS or act as mentors. That they want to spread that opportunity to other young people because it was so beneficial to them is incredibly welcome. NCS’s website includes a list of other organisations they can sign up to, but we believe the country would benefit from a more rigorous approach to embedding volunteering for young people, and from recognising the importance of the time that they spend volunteering as a benefit, not just for them, but for society as a whole. We believe that requires a proper legal framework for young people to be able to take the next step and take part in longer periods of volunteering. At the moment, there is no legal status that recognises full-time volunteers. In some cases, that can act as a barrier that deters young people and others from taking part in volunteering, something that presumably, from the way NCS has been set up, we are seeking to encourage.
In other countries, such as the United States, France and Germany, full-time volunteering is recognised by the state as a service and has a legal status that helps to encourage hundreds of thousands of young people to take part. It is good for them as they learn new skills and it is good for society that benefits from their energy, creativity and activity for the common good. This point matters because, if a young person in the UK takes a year of service—a year off to participate in volunteering—they will be defined as a NEET: not in education, employment or training. They do not qualify for national insurance contributions; they cannot be paid expenses if they are ill, and they cannot receive proper training from their charity. We need to address that problem if we as a society are going to benefit as we should from young people who have been equipped and supported to volunteer to the benefit of the rest of us.
Last month, the Government announced the full-time social action review. We would welcome an update from the Minister on how that is going and whether he is considering the option of legal status for volunteers, because without it we are not enabling young people to benefit in the way that they should from the tremendous opportunities they will gain in the National Citizen Service.
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.
Mr Wilson
I am sure that it is possible to monitor that sort of thing, but I would not put that additional reporting requirement in the Bill. We can discuss that outside this forum.
The Bill is not the place to fix an approach. For the meantime, the Government are committed to publishing an independent evaluation of NCS every year, as we have since 2013. In addition, the NAO can carry out value-for-money studies. Owing to the complexity of evaluating long-term impact, we prefer to keep using those independent expert evaluations rather than placing a broad statutory requirement on the trust.
I agree absolutely with the hon. Member for Croydon North that young people’s involvement is essential to NCS and it should encourage long-term volunteering, but it is my view that the reporting requirement in clause 6 strikes the right balance between being thorough on the one hand and being achievable and not overly bureaucratic on the other. The Government therefore will not support the amendment. I hope that, given my reassurance, the hon. Gentleman feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Mr Reed
I thank the Minister for his comments. It is clear from what he has said that our intentions are very similar, but I am not yet persuaded that the Government’s intended approach will deliver the outcomes that they say they want. However, this Committee is not the place to pursue that. We need to have further conversations, in particular with the trust itself and some of the participants, and that can better be done between now and Third Reading. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
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.
Mr Wilson
We can consider that, but my instinctive reaction is that it would not be necessary because, under the normal process, both the PAC and the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport can hold the NCS Trust and us accountable for actions on anything to do with this Bill. I do not think that is necessary, but I am prepared to discuss it with my hon. Friend before Report.
The reduction of the cost per participant is one of the NCS Trust’s key performance indicators. Over the coming years, we will work with the trust continually to improve value for money and drive down the cost per participant by redesigning the contractual agreements, leveraging the scale of the NCS network and delivering cross-system benefits such as centralised procurement and co-ordinated logistics. The annual report will provide a means of reporting on that activity. For Parliament to hold the trust to account, it must have detailed information on the trust’s actions, the reasons for taking such actions, and the outcomes identified by the trust. To reassure my hon. Friend, Parliament can test those conclusions if required.
Clause 6 gives the Secretary of State the power to comment on the annual report and to provide information on how Government Departments have worked to support the trust and the NCS programme. The Government must play their part in continuing to support NCS, which has the potential to support a broad range of Government priorities, such as the Syrian refugee resettlement programme. That information will provide a wider view on how the Government are maximising the benefits of NCS.
Mr Reed
I am delighted that the Minister mentioned accessibility and the importance of focusing on participation by young people with disabilities. I echo those comments. Subject to the caveats in the amendments that we have tabled, we support the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
While the Minister gathers himself, I say to the Committee that you are making stunning progress on the Bill. I do not know if we will have to sit this afternoon, let alone on Thursday.
Clause 7
Notification of financial difficulties and criminal conduct
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Wilson
I am delighted to be a Minister who is making stunning progress; I hope that carries on for a long time to come. Clause 7 would require the trust to notify the Government promptly if any NCS provider falls into serious financial difficulty, or is in breach of contract with serious consequences for the trust. The Government must also be notified if a member of staff of the trust or an NCS provider commits fraud or is in breach of their employment contract with serious consequences for the trust, or is the subject of a police investigation in which the allegation of criminal conduct could have serious consequences for the trust.
The trust is the central commissioning body for NCS. It currently contracts directly with nine providers that cover 19 defined regions. Those organisations then contract and work with hundreds of local providers. The trust sits in the middle of a huge operation, and the Government need to know of serious issues that could have either financial or reputational consequences for NCS.
The clause aims to be proportionate. If one of the trust’s key providers breached its contract with serious consequences for the trust, the Government would need to be informed. It may be that the negotiations between the two organisations affect the trust’s ability to carry out its primary functions. The earlier the Government are informed, the better we are able to take contingency action. However, the NCS Trust also has relationships with many organisations and suppliers that are not NCS providers. It would not be necessary for the Government to know if, for example, one of the smaller suppliers went into administration. That would not have a direct or seriously negative effect on NCS.
In the case of criminal conduct, Government action may not be direct. Where an individual has committed a crime, it is always the police who should be informed, but the Government should be informed if an allegation against a person or group of people could impact directly on the NCS programme. The trust must be legally responsible for alerting the Government and working collaboratively with the Government to resolve matters as they arise.
The NCS Trust has excellent relationships with its providers. It has grown NCS at pace while ensuring that it is a quality, carefully organised programme that works well across England. The Bill is designed to put the trust on a secure, stable footing, to ensure that it can work efficiently, effectively and transparently. Clause 7 is a necessary part of the Bill.
Mr Reed
This is a very important clause, and it is something the Government must have absolute regard to in working with NCS. I briefly suggest to the Minister that this is another area in which user insight—the views and experiences of young people who are participating—could be extremely helpful in identifying problems before they grow into crises, as long as there is a mechanism for those experiences to be aired. One of the reasons that councils, including the one that I was leading, decommissioned Kids Company some 10 years before the Government recognised that there were problems, is that they were closer to their service users and were hearing about those problems on the ground. I would hope, and want, to see the NCS benefiting from the insight of young people, who will spot problems as soon as they start to happen. If issues can be ratcheted straight up to the top of the organisation, that can trigger appropriate remedial action before they grow into something far worse.
Mr Wilson
Clause 8 allows the trust to charge a fee for participation in the NCS programme. That would maintain existing practice. The NCS Trust charges a maximum of £50 for a place on the programme. Any young person who cannot afford that pays either nothing at all or a subsidised amount. The value of a place on NCS is significantly more, and is covered by Government and taxpayer funding.
Fifty pounds for such a packed and challenging set of activities, many of which are done away from home, is excellent value for money for young people and their parents or carers. Fees pay a small part in meeting the costs of NCS, but they also incentivise attendance. If a young person signs up to NCS during a school assembly their participation is not guaranteed; but if they, or their parents or guardians, invest financially they are more likely to participate if they are able. Practically, fees help NCS providers to plan ahead and deliver the programme.
Clause 8 does not specify the amount that the trust can charge. That is to prevent the Bill becoming out of date—£50 will in future be likely to mean something different from what it means today—and to allow reasonable flexibility. None the less, the royal charter requires the trust to ensure that there is
“equality of access to the programmes by participants regardless of their background or circumstances”.
The trust therefore cannot act as a barrier to attendance. Clause 8 is necessary to support effective programme delivery; but it should be seen in the context of the trust’s functions, as set out in the royal charter.
Mr Reed
In general terms, we support the clause. It can be helpful for young participants to have to make a relatively small financial contribution, because that underscores the perceived value of what they are about to take part in. However, no one would want the introduction of a fee that would deter any young person—particularly those from poorer backgrounds—from taking part. The Minister made it clear that he shares that intention, but I shall press him slightly further. What analysis will be conducted to ensure that no young people are being deterred from taking part by the introduction of the fee?
Mr Wilson
I do not want to get involved in the day-to-day operational issues of the NCS Trust. It has a target of trying to reach all young people who might want to go on the course, in accordance with our manifesto commitment. It has an imperative to do that, and to make sure that young people are not deterred. Price could be a deterrent if it were to rise too high, so I leave it to the NCS Trust to charge the optimal fee to get as many people on the programme as possible. We would never want the fee to be so high as to deter anyone. The Government want to give a clear steer to the trust to make sure it gets as many young people as possible on the programme.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
HMRC Functions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Wilson
Clause 11 introduces schedule 2 which makes consequential amendments to other legislation in relation to the NCS Trust. This is to ensure NCS is treated consistently with other similar bodies covered by legislation, such as the Public Records Act 1958.
Two minor and technical amendments to correct the drafting on extent and commencement provisions are in part 2 of the Bill. These two technicalities were not spotted in the other place, despite its reputation for scrutiny—I will try not to be too controversial there. It therefore falls to this House to be the more thorough Chamber and to make the corrections.
Clause 13 states that the extent of the Bill is England and Wales. Schedule 2, however, contains consequential amendments to four other Acts: the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Public Records Act 1958 and the Equality Act 2010. Schedule 2 adds the chair of the NCS Trust to the House of Commons Disqualification Act. It also adds the NCS Trust to the list of public bodies to which the other three Acts apply. All four provisions would cover the NCS Trust in more than just England and Wales. The Equality Act extends to England, Wales and Scotland; the other three are UK wide. Clause 13 needs to reflect this and it does not do so at the moment. Government amendment 1 corrects that. In reality, the NCS Trust is not able to operate in the whole of the UK because the extent of the NCS Bill is just England and Wales and it only applies in England. The amendment does not make a practical difference, but the drafting needs to be correct. The amendment qualifies clause 13 with the words:
“An amendment made by this Act has the same extent as the provision to which it relates (and this Part extends accordingly).”
Turning to clause 14 on “Commencement”, the Bill currently says that part 2—the general technical provisions at the back—and schedule 2, come into force the day the Act is passed. This means that the consequential amendments that add the new NCS Trust charter body to the Public Records Act, FOI Act and Equality Act et cetera come into force on Royal Assent. At this point, the new NCS Trust charter body will not necessarily exist. This is because it will only come into existence once the charter is granted, which will be some time after royal charter. In reality, the NCS Trust charter body will come into existence once the charter is granted. This will be some time after Royal Assent.
If we do not make this change, the new NCS Trust will not come into existence until after Royal Assent, but the FOI Act and others will include it straight away on Royal Assent. There is no sense in these Acts covering a body that does not yet exist. The amendment simply corrects that.
Mr Wilson
We are rapidly drawing to a swift conclusion on these clauses. Clause 12 would provide standard powers for the Secretary of State to make transitional provisions in connection with the commencement of any provision of the Bill. That is to ensure that the Bill is implemented in an orderly manner.
Clause 12(1) makes provision about the first financial year of the trust. It says that a business plan for the first financial year must be made within two months of the financial year beginning rather than by 1 June. That deals with the case where the NCS Trust only comes into existence after 1 June in a given financial year, so that its first financial year is a short one. Obviously, in that situation the trust could not be expected to produce a business plan before 1 June. Clause 12 deals with that technical issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.