Notification of financial difficulties and criminal conduct

Part of National Citizen Service Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 24 January 2017.

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Photo of Steve Reed Steve Reed Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport) (Civil Society) 10:30, 24 January 2017

This is a very important clause, and it is something the Government must have absolute regard to in working with NCS. I briefly suggest to the Minister that this is another area in which user insight—the views and experiences of young people who are participating—could be extremely helpful in identifying problems before they grow into crises, as long as there is a mechanism for those experiences to be aired. One of the reasons that councils, including the one that I was leading, decommissioned, decommissioned Kids Company some 10 years before the Government recognised that there were problems, is that they were closer to their service users and were hearing about those problems on the ground. I would hope, and want, to see the NCS benefiting from the insight of young people, who will spot problems as soon as they start to happen. If issues can be ratcheted straight up to the top of the organisation, that can trigger appropriate remedial action before they grow into something far worse.