David Cameron's 'big society' flagship cannot justify costs, say MPs

A publicly funded £1bn “big society” project set up by former prime minister David Cameron to restore values of responsibility and discipline among young people has been criticised by MPs for lax spending controls and poor management.

The Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said the National Citizen Service (NCS) trust lacked appropriate governance arrangements, could not justify its high costs, and was unable to prove whether its courses had any long-term impact on youngsters.

Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said: “We urge the trust and central government to review fundamentally the way NCS is delivered and its benefits measured before more public money is committed in the programme’s next commissioning round.”

MPs said that the scheme – which has received £600m in government funding since 2011 and stands to get another £900m investment over the next two years – should be “fundamentally reviewed” by ministers.

Hillier said although there was some evidence the scheme had a short-term positive impact on participants this did not in itself justify the high level of public spending on the programme, nor demonstrate that it would deliver the proposed benefits.

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The PAC report criticised the trust for refusing to disclose directors’ salaries, and accused it of a “lack of discipline” after failing to recover £10m paid to providers for unfilled places. It concluded that it was unclear whether the trust management had the necessary skills and experience to run the scheme.

Although the original aim of the NCS was to become “a rite of passage” for all 16 to 17-year-olds, the report says the government has revised its aim of involving 360,000 youngsters in the scheme in 2020-21 to 247,000. Even this revised target was “extremely challenging”, the report said.

Cameron launched the National Citizen Service in 2010 as “a kind of non-military national service” to encourage youngsters from different social backgrounds to mix, encourage “big society” volunteering, and teach them to be socially responsible.

The London riots of 2011 gave a fresh political impetus to the scheme, with Cameron offering it up as a way of establishing discipline in youngsters whose lives had “no shape” and “no purpose beyond the next time they get smashed on drink or drugs.”

Since then over 300,000 youngsters have participated in the service, which offers a four-week residential course comprising team-building and life skills, alongside involvement in community projects such as planting a communal garden or arranging a family fun day.

Cameron underlined his personal commitment to the NCS last autumn when he announced that his first formal role outside politics would be to chair its patrons’ board. He hopes to attract a national newspaper editor and a prominent cross-party politician to join him as official supporters of the scheme.

The PAC report said that although initial evaluations found that participants in the scheme said it had made them feel more confident, and more positive towards people from different backgrounds, the trust had no data to measure long-term outcomes of its courses and was unable to understand “what works”.

Michael Lynas, chief executive at NCS, a former civil servant and “big society” specialist in the No 10 policy unit under Cameron, said: “We are always seeking to strengthen NCS, reach more young people, deepen our long-term impact and deliver even greater value for money.

“Achieving value for taxpayers’ money is of central concern to NCS trust and independent research shows between £2.20 and £4.15 of benefits are returned to society for every £1 invested. The vast majority of NCS funding goes to more than 200 local charities and community groups and helps them to build the local infrastructure to attract young people to NCS and deliver life-changing programmes.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “NCS has had a positive impact on the lives of over 300,000 young people to date and we want many more to benefit from it. Independent evaluation has demonstrated that NCS is delivering value for money and we will be looking closely at how we can better measure the impact it has in the long term.”

Seperately, it emerged yesterday that E4L, one of 10 firms engaged to run services on behalf of NCS, went bust just a few months after signing a contract in 2014 to run courses in south-west England. The trust claims it is owed £780,000.

According to Children and Young People Now magazine a liquidator’s report revealed that a former director of E4L, Gareth Holohan, received a total of £710,000 in dividends about three months before E4L shut down. He is said to be vigorously defending proceedings begun by the liquidator to recover this sum. The trust said it had carried out “extremely detailed and robust checks” before signing the contract.