Will the National Citizen Service stop young people rioting?
A car burns in Clarence Road E5, Monday 8 August. Photograph: Tom Dale
On 8 August, a group of young people were due to quiz residents on the streets of Hackney, in east London, about life in the area. But their questions were never asked. Following reports of imminent disturbances, the young people were swiftly relocated to a neighbouring borough, a few hours before violence erupted in the heart of Hackney on the third night of riots across the capital.
The group were participants in a pilot of the National Citizen Service (NCS) programme, David Cameron’s flagship scheme for engaging the country’s young people and keeping them out of trouble which, since the riots across England earlier this month, the prime minister has repeatedly offered up as a key way to address the “deep problems” revealed by the violence.
The three-week NCS, which was launched in a blaze of publicity last year with actor Michael Caine, includes two weeks away from home, first on an outdoor activity course and then volunteering in a neighbourhood, and a third week designing a community project. Some 11,000 16-year-olds were due to take part in pilot schemes this year after their GCSEs, and next year that number will increase to 30,000. But Cameron now wants to roll it out to all 600,000 of England’s 16-year-olds.
“When we see events as shocking as the riots and so many young people whose lives have no shape beyond the shape of their gang, no purpose beyond the next time they get smashed on drink or drugs, it is clear that the need to restore values calls for something new. That is why this government is establishing National Citizen Service. This has its roots in the National Service that many young people undertook decades ago. National Citizen Service is non-military but aims to foster the same sense of responsibility and self-discipline,” wrote Cameron recently in the Sunday Express.
The 60-strong group from London, whose activities in Hackney were disrupted, are doing their NCS through the Challenge, a charity the government’s former adviser on the “big society”, Lord [Nat] Wei, was instrumental in setting up. It is one of 12 providers contracted by the government to deliver NCS pilots. Although some of the young people’s friends had questioned why they wanted to join the scheme –”A couple of them said, ‘I’m not going to waste three weeks of my life on this,'” says 16-year-old Josh Diamond – the group reckons the outdoor activity element is enough to tempt anyone to join in. The abseiling was so good, they claim, that it would turn even the most hardened would-be rioter’s head.
But their opinion flies in the face of detractors of the scheme, who argue that the most disaffected teenagers are never going to sign up to something that sounds so chronically uncool. They also claim that the NCS will be dominated by white, middle-class kids looking to boost their CVs and that the programmes are too short to make any real difference to participants’ lives.
Earlier this week, a survey of young people revealed that almost a third of respondents in London blamed the riots on teenagers getting bored during the summer holidays. So how long will the impact of a three-week summer scheme be felt among its participants? “There are 52 weeks in a year,” says Jason Stacey, head of policy at YMCA England. “Where do they go on a cold November night when they want to do something?”
It does not help that the NCS is being piloted at the same time as local authority youth services are being slashed across the country. In June, an influential cross-party group of MPs called for a drastic downgrading of the NCS. The education select committee said it was too expensive in its current form.
The government is spending around £15m on the scheme this year, an average cost per place of £1,364. Based on these costs, extending the project to all 16-year-olds would top £800m – more than double the amount spent by English local authorities on all youth services in 2009-10.
The Challenge NCS pilot is deliberately set up to keep engagement going throughout the year, with reunions, text message updates, mentoring and funding available for groups who want to keep their projects running – although the government funding of 80% of the cost does not cover this extra work. Some participants certainly seem eager to carry on the work.
The minister for civil society, Nick Hurd, visited the Challenge last week as part of a tour of NCS pilots around the country. In addition to the week of adventure activities, the young people tell Hurd that they have enjoyed meeting new people, bonding over the volunteering projects, and the feeling of empowerment and confidence the scheme gave them. “It showed us that we actually can do something in our community,” says 16-year-old Simisola Oyesanya.
When Hurd quizzes the group on whether they think the positive aspects will fade over a year, Simisola outlines a plan to extend throughout the UK her team’s community project to improve relations between the police and young people. The group devised the project during the third week of the NCS when they must present their idea to a “Dragons’ Den-style” panel.
Among the young people on the Challenge NCS pilot, 54% of participants identify themselves as black, Asian or mixed race, 19% are eligible for free school meals and 1% come from either pupil referral units or special schools. Hurd admits that getting the right mix of pupils from different backgrounds is the hardest part, but he says he is adamant that the NCS is about more than a three-week course: “That will light the spark. What happens next is really important.”
He is talking to businesses about possible schemes to give work experience and other opportunities to teenagers who have completed NCS, in particular those who are not returning to school for A-levels or other studies. There would be no guarantee of a placement, but he hopes firms would see participation as a glowing character reference.
The education select committee concluded that given the cuts to youth services, the scheme should be reduced to a quality accreditation mark for existing voluntary projects and the funding diverted to wider youth services. Lisa Nandy, a Labour MP on the select committee, says: “I’m not opposed to having a citizen service, but what I don’t want is a system that’s worked really brilliantly for a group of young people who have nothing else being replaced by a summer camp for middle-class kids.”
Stacey at the YMCA echoes those concerns: “Over £100m is going to go from youth services. The NCS is a small ray of sunshine in a very gloomy picture at the moment – it’s not a replacement for focused youth services,” he says.
The NCS pilots will be evaluated by the National Centre for Social Research. An initial independent evaluation of the Challenge programme – on which the NCS is based – suggested that middle-class participants got the most out of it. The charity says the weaknesses identified by the evaluation have been addressed. Craig Morley, chief executive of the Challenge, believes expanding the programme as much as the government wants is possible, but warns against doing it hastily at the expense of quality. It is likely to be more than five years before hundreds of thousands of teenagers can do it, and no one has managed anything like that before, he says.
“You need to mobilise young people themselves to make this successful,” he says. “That’s the only way you can get this to be seen as something that if you don’t do you’re not cool and you’ve really missed out on something.”
And what about its potential to curb young people rioting? Back at the Hackney group, Simisola’s twin sister Emiola says: “I’m sure none of us would have been rioting. Perhaps if there had been more [NCS schemes going on] they [the rioters] wouldn’t have wanted to. We’re planning to do stuff for our community. We wouldn’t want to ruin the community we’re trying to work hard for.”
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