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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of recent trends in the level of young people participating in the National Citizen Service.

NCS has been the fastest growing youth organisation since its inception 10 years ago. In recent years, participation in the NCS programme has increased to around 100,000 per year. This equates to approximately 1 in 6 eligible young people participating in the programme. In 2014, 58,283 young people participated in comparison to 99,179 in 2017 (according to the latest published figures). The newly commissioned network, brand refresh and targeted recruitment marketing campaign are all expected to ensure that more young people benefit from the programme, following a year of change and transition.