National Citizen Service Trust: Costs

(asked on 16th April 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will publish the full cost of the unfilled places of the National Citizens Service in 2019-20.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 21st April 2021

As detailed in the National Citizen Service Trust’s Annual Report for the financial year 2019/20, the impact of Covid-19 has meant that NCST are unable to calculate standard value for money metrics on a financial year basis due to the cancellation of the Summer 2020 programme. Instead, NCST measured their performance on cost of unfilled places on a calendar year basis.

As stated in NCST’s Annual Report 2019/20, costs of unfilled places fell year on year from £9.5m in 2018 to £5.0m in 2019. This spend went to NCST’s network of Delivery Partners (mostly made up of non-profit youth sector organisations), who the Trust gives part of their revenue upfront to support preparatory activities such as running recruitment events and hiring programme staff.

The revised supplier contracts from 2020 onwards have been designed to minimise the risks of the Trust paying for places which are not filled in future. Furthermore, centralised booking of accommodation will enable the Trust to improve payment terms and minimise unfilled bed costs.

Reticulating Splines