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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to (a) the conclusion on page 6 of the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, National Citizen Service, Forty-sixth Report of Session 2016–17, HC 955, published on 14 March 2017, that states that the National Citizen Service (NCS) Trust paid providers around £10 million in 2016 for places that were not filled and (b) the conclusion on page 15 of the Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts, Forty Sixth Report of Sessions 2016-2017, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, National Citizen Service, Cm 9505, published in October 2017 that states that £218,413 has been recovered by the Trust from the relevant providers, what the reasons are for the discrepancies between those two sums of money; what steps the Government is taking to ensure that funds for NCS places not filled are recovered; and if he will make a statement.

NCS Trust pays providers 50% of the unit cost of commissioned places in advance so that they can build the infrastructure needed to safely deliver NCS. The £10 million figure refers to the amount paid upfront to NCS providers in 2016 for places that were not filled.

For the Summer 2016 programme, providers whose delivery was below contractual performance thresholds were audited in order to identify whether the advance payments had been fully spent. The Trust identified and recovered £218,413 of unspent funds.

Reducing the amount spent on unfilled places is a priority for DCMS and we have taken steps including introducing measures on unfilled places in the NCS Trust performance management framework.