Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help the NCS Trust recover funds spent on unfilled National Citizen Service places.

DCMS has been working closely with NCS Trust to reduce the risk of funds being spent on unfilled places. This year DCMS introduced a KPI on the number of unfilled places in the NCS Trust’s performance management framework. In 2017 we also worked with the Trust to improve the accuracy of target-setting and commissioning which means that the number of places commissioned is better matched to actual demand. In 2016 NCS Trust also carried out an independent, external audit to identify funds that could be recovered.