In a submission to the Citizenship and Civic Engagement Committee, the NCVO has stated that more collaboration is needed between the National Citizen Service (NCS) and the rest of the voluntary sector.
NCVO said it is opposed to making programmes like NCS, which include an element of volunteering, compulsory because it “would be contradictory to the principle of volunteering and counter-productive to the spirit of altruism that is at the heart of volunteering.”
The NCVO also said more can be done to improve the social action element of the programme, and that NCS must also “support smaller, local organisations so that they are able to effectively deliver the programme and ensure that commissioning processes are accessible to these organisations”. It said that so far NCS has “failed to nurture and capitalise on this expertise to support the effective delivery of the programme and the quality of the offer for young people”.
Separately, DCMS has published non-statutory guidance for local authorities on the National Citizen Service. The guidance recommends making links between local NCS providers and various local groups – but does not mention heritage volunteering opportunities.