The independent body that will run the government’s flagship National Citizen Service programme has been established as a community interest company and is set to appoint a chief executive on a salary of around £120,000.
An archived job advertisement in the Sunday Times for the role of chief executive at the NCS Trust states that the salary would be circa £120,000 plus benefits.
A spokeswoman for the NCS Trust told civilsociety.co.uk that interviews for the position took place in December and that the new CEO would be announced soon.
In November 2012 Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, announced that Stephen Greene, co-founder and chief executive of RockCorps, had been appointed to chair a new independent organisation to administer the programme. The National Audit Office’s annual review of the Cabinet Office shows that this organisation had been called NCS Trust and is registered as a CIC.
The NAO report also reveals that the organisation is looking for funding from outside of government to “support long-term viability of the programme as costs rise in line with expected growth”.
Since December 2012 the new organisation received almost £3m in grants from the Cabinet Office, according to the monthly spending data published by the government.
Documents filed with Companies House indicate that four executive directors have already been appointed to run the organisation. They are:
- Natasha Kizzie, director of marketing and communications. She is a youth marketing specialist from the private sector.
- Simon Jones, finance director. He was previously BT Global Service’s commercial director for central government.
- Michael Lynas, director of strategy. He was the Prime Minister’s senior adviser on the programme and other civil society and social action projects.
- Doug Fraley, director of operations. He co-founded the Challenge Network, which runs NCS programmes in London and before being appointed to this role was on secondment at the Cabinet Office advising on NCS.
The organisation has appointed eight non-executive directors, they are:
- Martina Milburn, chief executive of the Prince’s Trust
- Alan Hirzel, a social enterprise investor
- Helen Stephenson, director of the Office for Civil Society
- Nick Farnhill, a founding partner at digital marketing agency, Poke
- Shaun Whatling, chief executive of Redmandarin consultancy
- Dame Julia Cleverdon, former chief executive of Business in the Community
- David Blunkett, Labour MP and former Home Secretary
- John Harley, chair of Groundwork London
Unfilled places on NCS programmes
The NAO review also shows that in 2012 there were almost 7,000 places on NCS programmes that were not taken up.
In 2012 there were 33,000 places commissioned, 26,003 of these were take up and 22,556 completed the course.
The Cabinet Office commissioned 50,000 places for 2013, rising to 90,000 in 2014 and aims for 150,000 by 2016.
