Cameron’s citizen service scheme attracts as few as one in 20 youngsters

FEWER than one in 20 young people took up a place on the Government’s National Citizen Service (NCS) in some areas of the country, it has emerged.

It has prompted local authorities to call for the NCS to have its funding cut and the money handed to them.

The scheme, one of David Cameron’s “legacy” projects and a pillar of his “Big Society” vision, took up 95 per cent of the government budget on youth services. But just 12 per cent of eligible youngsters took part, according to figures from 2016, while in some areas the take-up was as low as four per cent.

The Local Government Association, which represents councils across England and Wales, said £634million had been spent on the NCS and urged ministers to reallocate some of the cash.

Council leaders want it diverted to local authorities that had been forced cut their own spending on youth services by 40 per cent in eight years.

More than 600 youth centres closed and nearly 139,000 youth service places were lost in the UK between 2012 and 2016, the LGA said. The NCS was a four-week voluntary initiative for young people aged between 15 and 17 in England and Northern Ireland. Councils claimed the money could have been better spent on year-round provision. Anntoinette Bramble, chairman of the LGA’S children and young people board, said: “While the National Citizen Service is a good programme which can be a positive experience for those who take part, we believe this should be part of a much wider youth service offering to support children and young people.

“A time-limited programme of work cannot provide the trusted, longerterm relationships that are a valued element of youth work, and that are needed by some young people to develop the self-esteem, confidence and skills to take part in such programmes.” Cat Smith, the shadow youth affairs minister, said: “NCS provides great opportunities for young people. However, a four-week programme is not enough to make up for the systematic removal of youth services across the country.

“At a time of devastating cuts, the Government cannot justify exclusively funding NCS at the expense of other vital youth services.”

Michael Lynas, NCS chief executive, said although he agreed local youth services needed more money, “taking money from another service that is proven to work does not make sense”, adding that was “like comparing apples and oranges”. Defending the programme on BBC Radio 4’s Today, he said: “One in six of all the young people in the country are currently taking part in National Citizen Service.

“NCS is growing very quickly. When I first helped found the programme 10 years ago, we had 158 young people; this year we will have 100,000 taking part – that’s half a million young people over the time we have been doing NCS that have taken part – and it’s working for those young people.”