National Citizen Service

National Citizen Service (NCS)

Formation	2011
Type	Royal Charter
Legal status	Trust
Purpose	Personal and social development
CEO	Mark Gifford[1]
Chair of NCS Trust	Harris Bokhari OBE[1]
Website	https://wearencs.com/

This article is part of a series about David Cameron
Political positions Electoral history The A-List Cameron Cutie MP for Witney Foreign Secretary Shadow Cabinet Frontbench team One-nation conservatism Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Premiership International trips First ministry and term Cameron–Clegg coalition and agreement Austerity programme Bloody Sunday apology Spending, Strategic Defence, Balance of Competences reviews Military intervention in Libya (Operation Ellamy) Big Society Big Society Award National Citizen Service Alternative Vote referendum Phone hacking scandal 2011 riots Welfare Reform Act Health and Social Care Act London 2012 Summer Olympics Belfast City Hall flag protests Bloomberg speech Death and funeral of Margaret Thatcher Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 Woolwich attack Scottish independence referendum Royal Mail privatisation Post Office scandal Second ministry and term Second Cameron ministry Operation Shader Military intervention against ISIL in Iraq 2015–16 floods 2016 budget EU referendum Brexit Murder of Jo Cox Panama Papers 2016 Conservative Party leadership election Resignation Honours Post-premiership 2016 Witney by-election Greensill scandal Greased piglet For the Record Tenure as Foreign Secretary International trips November 2023 British cabinet reshuffle
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The National Citizen Service (NCS) is a voluntary personal and social development program for 16–17-year-olds in England funded largely by money from the UK Government.^[2] It was founded in 2009 and formally announced in 2010 by Prime Minister David Cameron as part of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's Big Society initiative, and it was launched in England in 2011.^[3] After the 2015 general election, the programme was continued under the Conservative government. In October 2016 Cameron, who had resigned as Prime Minister, became chairman of the NCS Trust's patrons' board.^[4] The scheme was made permanent through the National Citizen Service Act 2017.^[5] With cross-party support, NCS became a Royal Charter Body in 2018.

The number of participants was always well below the target—in 2016 it was 12% of those eligible—and the cost of the programme was significant; from 2014 to 2018 government spending on NCS was 95% of all UK government spending on youth services. Funding dropped by 69% between 2019 and 2023.