National Citizen Service 2013 Evaluation - One Year On

Ipsos was commissioned by the Cabinet Office to evaluate the summer and autumn programmes of National Citizen Service (NCS) 2013. NCS is a Government-backed initiative that brings together young people aged 15 to 17 from different backgrounds to help them develop greater confidence, self-awareness and responsibility, with a view to creating a more cohesive, responsible and engaged society. It is managed by the NCS Trust, an independent not for profit organisation.

NCS 2013 summer and autumn programmes involved over 37,000 young people taking part in a range of team activities, as well as a social action project in their local community. This report covers the findings from the second stage of the evaluation, one year on from the programme, measuring impacts and value for money of NCS 2013 on year after the programme took place – a further stage will measure the impact of the summer programme, and its value for money two years after the programme took place. Impacts were measured across four outcome areas: social mixing; transition to adulthood; teamwork, communication and leadership; and community involvement.

Both the summer and autumn programmes were found to have statistically significant positive impacts in all four outcome areas, and summer 2013, one year on, was estimated to return to society between £1.25 and £4.65 for every £1 spent on the programme.

• Download the technical report (PDF)

Technical Details

The evaluation comprised four components:

• a self-completion paper and online surveys of NCS participants and control groups, conducted before the summer and autumn programmes began, around three months after their completion, and again a year later (In summer 2013, 24,926 NCS participants and 8,750 control group members completed baseline surveys. Of these, 3,091 and 1,724 respectively completed initial follow-up surveys. A further 2,245 and 1,291 completed one year on follow-up surveys. In autumn, 6,770 NCS participants and 3,638 control group members completed baseline surveys. Of these, 1,310 and 1,397 respectively completed the initial follow-up surveys. A further 495 and 707 completed one year on follow-up surveys).
• an economic analysis of the data from the participant surveys using the HM Treasury Green Book methodology