Policy background
- The NCS has been available since 2011, and consists of courses for young people in England and Northern Ireland, mostly aged 16 and 17. The courses take place during school holidays and are partly residential. They comprise a mixture of activities – adventures, life skills and social action – which encourage young people to engage with their community and develop for the future.
- The programme is currently administered by a community interest company, also called the NCS Trust (company registration number 08235117, ‘the Company’). The Company contracts with providers in different parts of England to deliver the programme. The Company is grant-funded on an annual basis by the Cabinet Office.
- The NCS is intended to enable the young people who attend to meet people from different backgrounds, enhancing their life skills and increasing their employability. It is also intended to encourage community cohesion. An increase in funding for the NCS was announced in the 2015 spending review to fulfil the government's aspiration that attendance on the NCS become a ‘rite of passage’ for all young people.
- The Act aims to help fulfil the government’s objectives in two ways. First, the Act (in combination with the Charter) will reform the legal framework for the NCS. In particular the combination of the Act and Charter:
- Secondly, the Act enables HMRC to send information about the Trust and its work to those young people who are eligible for NCS (and their parents and carers) and invite them to take part in the NCS. This will allow HMRC to assist the Trust to promote its programmes.
- Detailed provisions on the constitution, procedure and powers of the NCS Trust are contained in the Charter. These include matters such as: the Trust’s functions and objectives; the methods by which its members and chief executive are to be appointed; remuneration of members and employees; delegation of functions; regulation of procedure; and the powers of the Trust, for example, to enter into agreements, invest money and accept gifts.
● Incorporates the new NCS Trust as a Charter body and creates a legislative mechanism to transfer the business of the Company to the new Trust. This creates a legislative framework for the NCS, with the aim of making it a national institution while preserving its independent ethos;
● Aims to secure that the administrative and funding arrangements for the NCS Trust are appropriate for the increased level of public funds the Trust will manage, with proper accountability to government and Parliament; and
● Aims to impose on the NCS Trust an appropriate level of government control for a body in receipt of public funds.
