Something very odd indeed is going on. In the middle of the most severe cuts in living memory where youth service budgets are being decimated, the government has announced a massive, and very costly, expansion of an unevaluated programme that has yet to demonstrate that it works at all. And to make matters even more bizarre, there has been, up until now almost no outcry from the sector.
I am talking about the National Citizen Service (NCS), and the fact that the PM has just announced that it will be increased by 900% up to 2014.
Let’s look at a few facts:
- This year was the pilot, and an evaluation has yet to be published. It is very poor practice at any level for a programme to be expanded before an evaluation is done, let alone a major national programme.
- It is very expensive – costed at £1,182 per person (I do not know if this is based on the anticipated cohort of over 11,000 or the actual of 8500). By contrast the scouts reportedly cost £600 for an entire year and Germany can apparently provide a full year-long volunteering programme for £1,228. I do not see how this 6-week programme remotely provides value for money.
- The stated plan is to increase from 11,000 places this year to 90,000 places in 2014.
- This year an astonishing 23% of places were not filled. This is either a serious indictment of the engagement for the programme or a reflection on a poorly designed programme (or both). Either way it does not bode well for an expansion and ought to set alarm bells ringing.
- The Prince’s Trust, who were a delivery provider this year for the pilot, did not even bid for the programme delivery in 2012, which is noteworthy.
- The government has recently failed to provide information in the required timescale from a Freedom of Information request from Third Sector magazine for the social and economic background data of the participants on the pilots.
- In a report published in June 2011 the parliamentary education select committee said it “cannot support” the programme. They argued that if 50% of 16year olds were to participate it would cost over £350 million – this is more than the entire amount spent on the youth service by Local Authorities in 2009-10.
- Figures from the Challenge Network (the largest provider this year) do not seem to add up. The government has said that 18% came from “low income families” whereas the BBC had the same organisation stating that 79.9% receive free school meals. One of these stats must be correct, but I cannot see how they both are possible.
- 5% of places on the NCS with the Challenge Network were taken by young people who are in private schools. This is an astonishing waste of public money on those who are least in need of it.
Personally I have not seen any accounts of any of the “youth led” community projects that were supposed to have happened. If 8,500 young people were delivering imaginative and constructive community projects why has this not been reported in the media? Particularly given the riots this summer, the positive community building activities ought to have been much more noticeable and widely reported (think of the reporting on riot cleanup).
I could go on, but I am not a journalist, and nor am I out to get the government. I think it is absolutely fantastic that the government is wanting to commit such substantial sums to youth development. But I think they are being poorly advised and that these funds can be much more effectively invested.
There are innumerable well established youth programmes, youth centres and other projects (with demonstrated results) that are currently either on the edge of collapse or seriously scaling back that I would argue ought to be funded instead of this programme.
In this time of budget constraints, what we need is intelligent commissioning of programmes that provide the best value for impact; a need made more urgent of course by the riots.
Our national portfolio of youth initiatives ought to be diverse, and scaled to fit with individual need and impact desired, where those that need (and deserve) more support and training, get more; those that really don’t need it or need less, get less or even don’t get it at all. We ought to have a wide diversity of types of initiatives and programmes rather than investing such a substantial percentage of the national youth budget on one cookie-cutter style scheme. These are not radical suggestions – they are common sense.
My hope is that there will be full disclosure and independent scrutiny of all the data surrounding this programme and a healthy debate, led by the sector, as to whether the NCS is the best and most effective way to use these funds to achieve the aims. The following is the data I would like to see:
1. Full demographic breakdown by location for the pilot
2. A complete list of all the community activities undertaken broken down by location and cohort
3. A full list of all the community activities that were initially planned and committed to by the groups broken down by location and cohort, ie what did the young people say they would do as compared to what they actually did.
4. Full breakdown on participation numbers, down to numbers per phase of the programme and per session, broken down ideally by location, demographics and cohort
5. Full costs breakdown (including hidden costs and cross subsidies). I think the DCLG £500 line would be a good benchmark to follow.
6. Results from interviews of those who did not complete the programme as to why they said they dropped out
7. A comparison with the costs of other youth engagement and empowerment programmes and an assessment of impact comparison.
8. Full disclosure of the individual contract details with providers, including fees and targets, in order that value for money can be compared.
9. The evidence base from consultation with young people that they think this programme would be the best way to invest the money in training and support for young people to secure the outcomes desired.
On the one hand, as a youth professional I am deeply distressed by the ill thought out funding of this particular programme. On the other hand, I am thrilled by the prospect that if enough of us in the sector let our views be known we can shape the direction of this pot of gold for young people, into programmes that really will make a difference.
We could be putting it into programmes for (amongst others) employment and skills, empowerment, rehabilitation of offenders and restorative justice, and a variety of early intervention projects. The funding from this one scheme could go some way to replacing the money lost to youth provision from the cuts. This is truly exciting and a glimmer of good news in amongst the tide of economic disaster and challenge in the youth and community sector. In order to make this happen, the sector will need to speak – loud and clear.
So my request to fellow professionals and youth and community organisations is to state your views, so that we can have a constructive national debate on the issue. And my request to government is to pause and take stock, and to then take on board the views of a wider range of people on how best to engage and inspire the nations young people. A monumental error is in the making and we will all be responsible if we allow this to happen on the quiet.
By Jonny Zander
Kaizen Director
Interesting blog Jonny – we published a story back in 2010 that raised some concerns about the apparent lack of attention that’s been paid to an evaluation of early NCS pilots, see link below (by Regeneration & Renewal, now part of Planning magazine):
https://www.planningresource.co.uk/news/1000316/Exclusive-Report-casts-doubt-Tory-national-citizen-service-scheme/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
An excellent piece Jonny. It’s all very concerning, but this Government already has a track record of pushing forward with ill thought out initiatives too quickly and with little to no consultation with the people that truly know the field, or with those most closely effected by the changes.
You can just add the NCS to the list of, BSF, EBacc, Free schools, GP powers and NHS re-organisation, prison sentencing, school sports partnership, forest privatisation, bin collections, bookstart, and I’m sure they’ll be many more to come.
This Govt seem to make decisions based on a few people in a room thinking “that’s a good idea”.
They need to be put under increased pressure to ensure full and proper consultation is carried out, with genuine and robust feasibility studies, facilitating effective pilots with reliable evaluations.
Currently they are acting too fast on everything (I think led by a fear of being a one-term government), and not being held accountable by either the opposition or the media.
Jonny,
Some interesting points, maybe this could be suggested as an area for attracting the 100,000 signatures required to trigger more focused govermental debate?
Excellent comments and very interesting information. I will pass this on to other interested colleagues in the youth profession to raise awareness. Keep up the brilliant work Johhny
Excellent blog & you’re absolutely right as a sector we should be speaking out. We ran the programme this year & the most successful part was the social action project but as you’ve said no one cared. All anyone was interested in was how many young people hurled themselves off a zip wire. Having run it our feedback is that it’s a badly designed, ill-informed, expensive programme that young people just didn’t get or relate to.
This blog post seems to be getting quite a reaction…what next I wonder?
@jonnyzander Good piece. Who is the NCS actully for – YP or older voting demographic..? Local outcry but no national outcry.. #weird
(@caseymorrison)
Challenging piece by @JonnyZander on scaling up of NationalCitizens’Service. Wonder if @grahamallcott has any thoughts? https://t.co/3OheQzDd
(@hackofalltrades)
Many twitter ‘hear hear’s 2 @jonnyzander spadenaming rallying cry #ncs : what’s the response?the offline reaction? bit.ly/nj1zlv #bigsociety
(@Owl_food Jess(ica) Medling)
@NCVYS we ran it & we have to agree with @jonnyzander. Could’ve done so much more for more young people with the money wasted on #NCS
(@Denise_DDB Denise Davis-Boreham)
RT“@davidwilcox: Powerful, independent challenge@jonnyzander on nat citzs service https://t.co/mX8Uelmk Monumental error in the making …
(@dawn_langley)
Powerful, independent challenge @jonnyzander on national citizen’s service bit.ly/nj1zlv “Monument error in the making …”
(@davidwilcox David Wilcox)
Really good critique of National Citizens Service bit.ly/nj1zlv by @jonnyzander
(@auntie_mabel auntie_mabel)
“@noelito: just noticed this on national citizen’s service bit.ly/nj1zlv by @jonnyzander wonder what people think?”
(@demsoc Democratic Society
@JonnyZander Great article & you’re right – the sector should be saying more.
(@Denise_DDB Denise Davis-Boreham)
RT @patrickjbutler: Recommended: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service https://t.co/pDLeWsjx << superb blog by
(@eseesea)
RT @patrickjbutler: Recommended: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service https://t.co/pDLeWsjx <yup
(@tobyblume)
@NCVYS going to have to say that I’m riding shotgun with @jonnyzander NCS doesn’t make any sense.
(@esceulus)
Where do you sit on the National Citizen Service, with @jonnyzander bit.ly/p5xtZ3 or with the Challenge Network https://t.co/UC3RDbeH ?
(@NCVYS)
A must read RT @domweinberg: A challenging and thoughtful blogpost on the National Citizen Service from @jonnyzander https://t.co/z96lznTi
(@BethParker)
A challenging and thoughtful blogpost on the National Citizen Service from @jonnyzander https://t.co/Xi1RfGlt
(@domweinberg)
@MattSL @JonnyZander Suspect it’s not been in the media cos actually it’s v hard to get it covered. Prob better looking to the delivery orgs
(@citizensheep)
RT @patrickjbutler: Recommended: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service https://t.co/gpg5HwFt @JonnyZander
(@CatherineRaynor)
MT @patrickjbutler: he curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service https://t.co/rMYYsTHq << superb blog by @JonnyZander
(@hanahfearn)
Recommended: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service bit.ly/qRGj8G < The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service by @JonnyZander https://t.co/1fODvZiH
(@youthworkable)
RT @MattSL: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service by @JonnyZander https://t.co/AdprXUy2 (excellent & disturbing)
(@DavidWhe)
RT @MattSL: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service by @JonnyZander https://t.co/AdprXUy2 (excellent & disturbing)
(@lucysweetman)
RT @MattSL: The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service by @JonnyZander https://t.co/AdprXUy2 (excellent & disturbing)
(@towora)
The curious case of the expansion of the National Citizen Service by @JonnyZander bit.ly/qRGj8G (excellent & disturbing)
(@MattSL Matt Lent)
Excellent blog, Jonny. Two other key dimensions for me in this puzzle about an apparent lack of evidence led policy spending are: we await imminent publication of a new Home Office policy on gangs at end October; and the findings of the Independent Riots Panel, who are still taking evidence from Communities in areas which experienced the riots.
This is an interesting blog and I welcome debate on the subject. I work for one of organisations delivering NCS and I just wanted to give my own responses to some of your points raised.
Specifically you wanted to hear some accounts of the youth-led community projects. For me, these have been one of the most exciting parts of the programme. We’ve been delighted by the creativity and commitment young people have shown, the impact of what many groups have managed to achieve, any especially by the stories of how young people have gained skills and confidence and overcome issues to make their projects happen. Here’s five of my favourites:
– Young people managed to clean up and reopen a shut-down play centre in Runcorn, and have raised a lot of community support to hopefully get funding to keep it open.
– In Nottingham, the young people wanted to help local homeless people. They held a sponsored sleep out and sourced donations of products from local businesses to create survival kits to give out.
– Our Lancaster group started their project as they wanted to support one of their team who had lost a baby to still birth. They fundraised to buy a headstone, and set up a website to share her story and support other young parents in the same situation
– A group in Portsmouth wanted to tackle the lack of positive things for young people to do in the area. After their research showed there were actually more opportunities than they had thought, they decided to set up a website to let young people know all the activities available to them.
– Our Kirkby group made a video to investigate and combat negative perceptions of young people in their town. It featured interviews with community members, police and the local MP, as well as an MTV cribs style guide to facilities for young people.
The diversity of these stems from the different young people and communities taking part, as they very much decide and drive what they want to do themselves. We’ve had all sorts of fantastic stories about intergenerational projects, conservation activities, charity fundraising and youth-organised events that brought the community together. I know large numbers of the young people involved are continuing to volunteer as a result of their experiences this summer.
We’ll be profiling some of these projects on our blog in the coming weeks too, so look out for those.
I agree it would be great to see more accounts of all this fantastic stuff in the media and in the national debate. We’ve had lots of local press coverage – there’s a small selection on our Facebook page here.
2011 and 2012 are both pilot years, and I agree with you, evaluating it is really important. Regarding your questions on data, we have been involved in an independent national evaluation of the programme. I believe the results are due to be published, so hopefully will help to answer some of your questions.
Personally, I think NCS is unique and powerful in bringing people from a mixture of social backgrounds together, and I believe that the focussed programme design really does allow for a huge amount of personal growth for the young people as individuals and teams.
Catch22 NCS Partnership
Props to you for doing the groundwork on this Jonny. I found the stats you pulled out on the number of young people they reached this year and the the amount they aim to reach by 2014. Pie in the sky comes to mind. Also the cost per head info is key. If ever efficient Germany are able to budget for a year long programme for less than the 6-week one, then the UK one is far to bloody expensive!
With the current stats around 18-25 unemployment being something like 1 in 4, what’s the use in a 6-week programme anyway when thousands of those young people will go straight back to signing on.
Personally I’m with Jonny. Let’s get that cash in to capacity building orgs already set-up to do this work. Use a chunk of the cash to skill up these orgs on engagement, coaching and evaluation and support them to implement work that’s responsive to individual need.
Put away your cookie cutters and start with the hand moulding!
Jonny,
I don’t think we’ve ever met but this is an interesting blog. I’m the Programme Director at The Challenge Network and would love to bore your under the table as to why we’re pretty passionate about the programme we run.
We set up The Challenge to do one thing well. To bond together local young people from different backgrounds (that’s why we need the private school kids too), build trust between them and grow ownership of their local community. The UK has the lowest levels of trust of others amongst under 55s. We think this is unacceptable. We set up the programme to do something about it.
We’re pretty passionate about The Challenge programme. Here’s some of the reasons why (this hopefully also gives you some of the stats you wanted!):
(1) It’s designed by young people
The programme was initially designed by about 400 young people taking part in a succession of focus groups across the UK. They designed everything from the name, the logo to the order of activities and the way we promoted it. In all of this we wanted to combine the best of a residential experience with the best of a community service experience. All too often we had seen these delivered excellently but not linked up properly. And we wanted to make sure we designed something that could scale. We felt it wasn’t good enough to do something that would just serve the few. Every year, we reviewed what we did, and redesigned getting input and guidance from the young people who graduated.
(2) It has very high take-up rates
In 2011, we filled 97% of our places (in some parts of the country, we had to turn people away. To give you an idea of the potential interest that comes when young people hear fully about the programme: in total we had 12,000 initial applications for 3240 places).
(7) We mix a representative sample of young people
Getting a representative mix is critical to us as this is what leads to the attitudinal change in Trust, Responsibility and Understanding. This is what we achieved in 2011:
– 17% are on free school meals (population average 16%) [The higher number on the BBC website was wrong – this would be far too high for us to represent the community]
– 2% are looked after children (population average 1%)
– 65% have no previous volunteering experience (in line with population average)
– 8% went to private or independent school (population average 7%)
– 1% went to PRU/SEN school (population average 1%)
– 4% have a disability
– 51% non-white
– 41% non-Christian
– 55% girls, 45% boys
(4) It has very high levels of retention
100% of our young people complete the first week
99% complete the second week
96% complete the third week
89% complete the subsequent weekends we run after the summer programme.
(5) It leads into Ongoing Community Action
The Challenge summer programme is for us a taster that leads into our year-round programme that we call The Challenge Society. Last year 85% of graduates signed up to volunteer with another local organisation. Alongside signposting into volunteering opportunities, our young people are able to:
– Attend bi-monthly action events that bring the whole group back together and welcome in young people who weren’t on The Challenge
– Continue their campaigns that they launched in the summer with support from central mentoring
– Join our local youth board to designs and improves our work in the local community
– Receive one-on-one mentoring if that are struggling to access employment, education or training
– Play a role in the summer programme as an Associate Mentor (our long-term aim is that all summer staff are graduates)
– Attend workshops that train them in employability skills
– Help give presentations promoting The Challenge to their peers
– Access work experience
(6) It is rated highly by young people who take part
Every young person who takes part in The Challenge gives a score to every section of the curriculum. The first two weeks of our programme receive an average score of 9 out of 10, and the third week and the ongoing projects receives 8 out of 10. We are delighted by this, but continue to aim for higher scores.
You can read a couple of quotes from our young people here – just found this online this morning! :https://socialbreakfast.org/blog/2011/09/30/national-citizens-service-a-job-well-done-but-at-what-cost/
(7) It has a lasting impact on young people
We measure the attitudinal change in young people levels of Trust, Responsibility and Understanding of others. The programmes raises these levels both during the programme and after. This affect lasts and can be measured a number of months after the summer programme is over. Alongside our more scientific measurement of evaluation (which I would be happy to share with anyone who doesn’t get too bored!), we also collect these simple metrics:
“I am more confident”: 96% Agree
“I’m better at getting on with new People”: 94% Agree
“I’m more able to trust people”: 87% Agree
“I’m better at understanding People”: 94% Agree
(8) The projects the young people run make a difference
The summer projects exist to inspire our young people and connect them with community organisations, but they also do make a difference. Each team delivers 4 projects over 4 weekends. As we had 270 teams, that is over 1000 projects. I therefore don’t propose to list them all here. Below is a randomly selected taster, 4 teams from our programmes in South London this year – not the best, not the worst – just a selection. I’ve got all 1000 though if you want them and a team of staff who would love to tell anyone who wants to hear about them in great detail!!
Team 1: Edwards
– Action: Worked with Pecan (local charity in Peckham) to collect food for FoodBank
– Fundraising: Raised £155 for Pecan
– Campaign: Ran a multi-cultural food stall at Elephant and Castle to promote different cultures and build understanding
– Big Action (with all four teams): Worked with Peckham Shed to design dramatic and artistic response to the Riots building on Peckham Peace Wall
Team 2: Perham
– Action: Painted two rooms in a St Mungo’s hostel
– Fundraising: Raised £88 for St Mungo’s
– Campaign: Promoted local sporting activities to local residents
– Big Action (with all four teams): Worked with Peckham Shed to design dramatic and artistic response to the Riots building on Peckham Peace Wall
Team 3: Reiss
– Action: Helped Victim Support to develop awareness and information campaigns
– Fundraising: Raised £66 for Victim Support
– Campaign: Encouraged local people to pick up litter in exchange for sweets, ran some litter picking games with local kids
– Big Action (with all four teams): Worked with Peckham Shed to design dramatic and artistic response to the Riots building on Peckham Peace Wall
Team 4: Sabesan
– Action: Hosted a Team Party with Contact the Elderly
– Fundraising: Raised £157 for Contact the Elderly
– Campaign: Gave out fliers and sweets in Peckham to promote a positive image of young people after the riots by reclaiming the streets and encouraging communities to work together to prevent violence.
– Big Action (with all four teams): Worked with Peckham Shed to design dramatic and artistic response to the Riots building on Peckham Peace Wall
(9) It brings in 100s of partners
The programme this summer involved over 300 local community partners (the more local and smaller the better!), 100s of business partners and countless local mentors and Dragons. We provide the logistics and a bit of vision, everything else relies on the local partners!
(10) We don’t shout about what we do very much
We’re a bit old fashioned. We believe in doing a good job, but remembering it’s out local partners who deserve the credit. That’s why you didn’t see the projects in the press and when you do it tends to be a press release from our partners rather than us: https://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/9163531.Minister_visits_teen_volunteers_at_Mitcham_charity/
Maybe we’ll speak up a bit more in future!
Anyway, I hope this helps grow the debate. I’d be delighted to chat more. Feel free to drop me an email via contact@the-challenge.org.
All best,
Jon
PS I think the cost comparisons are a little misleading. The German example cited is a work-experience programme for 16-27s – it’s a little closer to providing internships. You might believe this is a better policy idea (!), but it’s definitely not the same sort of thing as a community cohesion programme. The Scouts have been incredibly good advisers to us, I do think the biggest challenge they would face in scaling up would be provision of volunteers. I believe there is a lack at present and therefore a waiting list of young people. Scaling this might require paid staff and that would raise the cost quite substaintially. I suspect a better comparator may be Do it 4 Real.
Don’t think we can knock those schemes that have done well and have enabled some young people to get good outcomes. The problem is that this scheme is not for everyone and for those who don’t want to run around in the wet and mud, or who are quietly getting on being a good citizen already, what is there left in the light of decimated youth services nationwide?
Some youth services managed to get good outcomes for young people on about £40 per head per year, and services were available for all and all year.
Do the government really think that they’re going to make good citizens out of those already disenfranchised by the system in 6 weeks?