Voluntary Work: Children
(asked on 25th October 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many participants in the National Citizen Service have been eligible for free school meals in each year since that service was introduced.
Ever since the programme’s inception, young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds in receipt of free school meals have been well represented. For example, in 2014, 17% of NCS participants were eligible for free school meals, compared with around 8% of young people of the same age in the general population.
All data collected on the backgrounds of NCS participants is self-declared.
Year | No. of NCS participants eligible for free school meals | Percentage of total participants |
2011 | 1,940 | 23% |
2012 | 5,460 | 21% |
2013 | 7,300 | 16% |
2014 | 9,280 | 17% |
The results of the independent 2015 evaluation will be published in due course.