A Civic Corps
by Sonia Sodha
Today, Demos launches a new report – Service Nation – that sets out our proposals for a national civic service. The report draws on evidence from the UK and abroad to show that service schemes have a ‘two for one’ benefit. They boost the employability of the young people who take part, equipping them with the skills like motivation, team work and communication that are so valued in today’s job market. Not only that, well-structured service and volunteering schemes can bring real benefits to the community. For example, volunteer reading schemes have improved children’s reading ability and confidence, and mentoring of offenders in the criminal justice system has been found to reduce reoffending between four and eleven per cent. The report argues that when times are tight, we as citizens should take responsibility for helping to support squeezed public services, but in order for this to happen there needs to be a structure, such as a national service scheme.
The idea of national civic service has been growing in popularity over the last few years. Politicians from across the spectrum back the idea: Gordon Brown announced an ambition that all young people should do 50 hours of community service by the age of 19, and David Cameron supported the idea of a summer service scheme for 16 year olds post-GCSEs back in 2007. Both of these are to be welcomed as a step in the right direction.
What makes our proposals different, however, is that we don’t think a ‘one-size-fits-all’ scheme for on particular age group will work for everyone. This was a message that was strongly reinforced in the young people’s convention event we held with 54 young people as part of the project. To ensure the greatest possible appeal, we need a lifetime service strategy that spans school to retirement.
Our report sets out proposals that span service learning at school for 7-16 year olds, ‘service’ NVQs for 16-18 year olds in FE, gap-year-style service schemes for 18-24 year olds with access to the same loans and grants as university students, and the expansion of work-based service schemes like TeachFirst.
Importantly, we think service should be for everyone – not just young people who have been failed by the system and so who stand to gain the most from it. That is why we think it is right that all university undergraduates – who benefit from state subsidies upwards of £5,000 each year – should be expected to do 100 hours of community service over the course of their degree.
When service schemes are well run, they can generate more than their original investment in economic and social value – for example, the Canadian service scheme, Katimavik, returns $2.20 for every dollar invested. However, a national civic service scheme will require upfront investment – around £450million a year. We suggest this should come from introducing a 2.5 per cent real interest rate on student loans. It is fair to ask students to contribute more towards the cost of their education when they go on to earn on average £600,000 more over the course of their lifetime.
Read the report and watch a short film from the young people's convention.
paul
Hi
I just watched your interview on the BBC. I really think if you want young people (student)to be getting involved you should not be proposing that they must additionally paid. Most students will graduate with £10 to 26K of debt.
Please come into the real world. As a student I do volunteer at a charity doing eyetests for homeless and financial challenged people in london.
I am sorry but your ideas sound idiotic and ill thought. If you want it to be a success rethink your argument
In its current form it will not be popular which means it is bound to fail. I must admit a shame as the thought of better social cohesion and additional benefits of volunteering are really needed in todays society but will not work in the idiotic liberal method you are proposing!
Adam
This report of flawed in so many senses, and nothing more than an attack on those at university no matter what their background.
I am currently struggling to find a student job whilst also studying for over 40 hours a week in order to progress and gain a good qualification. How dare you suggest that I owe so much to society, I am already involved in schemes which invlove unpaid work but now you feel the need to punish me for attending university.
This idea is nothing short of offensive.
Jack
With students graduating with thousands of pounds worth of debt already I think the idea to make them pay even more is idiotic.
Nick Mason
National civic service is a wonderful idea. How else can you socially engineer the next generation to your Marxist ideology.
You also get to manipulate the jobless figures as people in unpaid civic work will not be classed as unemployed. Genius.
Will we be required to wear uniforms like the Hitler Youth?
100 hours of forced community service. You would get less for stealing a car or mugging an old lady!
Barry
Lots to like in this report - but I would have liked to hear more your option B (you called it "The Challenge" - is this www.the-challenge.org?).
For those who feel that the idea of compulsory volunteering is an oxymoron, I would have liked you to explore more about this option as you said this was the one that young people said they were most likely to do. What was it they liked about this? What is their programme?
CT
It's late and I haven't got past this post, the comments and the summary, so maybe this is wide of the mark. If you want to make it I wonder if the case for national service needs to be a bit more emotive than some people need skills/some people need to 'pay back'/society benefits. the people who need skills might justly feel that they should have got them through the education system, the people who need to 'pay back' will feel that they pay back in other ways.
I dunno, another approach might be to evoke the extent of social and cultural fragmentation in Britain in 2009, and the (terrible?) cost of the weakness of social ties between people who are not your friends or in your family... and why national service is better placed than anything else to resolve it. Blighty is an emotional feeling, the idea of serving it probably needs to be too.
Gaps in the Dialogue
Firstly, the idea that former University dtudents should fund a National Civis Service is completely absurd. University students already 'pay back' to the tune of £23,000 for their University education. Further, a National Civic Service should not be put forward as an alternative to paid employment because we are in a recession. Even whilst seeking paid employment, individuals dont have time to work for free in the meantime.
Secondly, I firmly disagree with this notion that Britain is falling apart socially, and no-one has any sense of helping their community or helping those less fortunate than themselves. As previous comments have pouinted out, numerous University students, and other young people, undertake voluntrary work.
Scrap this idea of a National Civic Service and offer young people fair opportunities. Countless graduates are currently slaving away for free within organisations who turnover millions. Pay them a fair wage. Pay individuals in our public services a fair wage.
Young people dont need to be forced to be altruistic, we already are.
http://wp.me/pFyGv-2w
Mike Amos-Simpson
The reports very interesting. It's good to see that at last some consideration is being given to the need to provide opportunities for those under the age of 16 - I'd argue that still you have the balance wrong though in that considerably more effort should be placed towards supporting those under 16, than those over. Young people still at school have considerably more flexibility in how they can spend their time and they're also much more key to reaching parents at that age than later when they become more independent from their families, and it's through this that a programme of citizenship can be more far reaching than this bizarre fixation all of these programmes and proposals seem to have with the 16-25 age range.
The proposal that work with under 16's should be through schools seems lazy though, with a bit more effort there are much more creative approaches that can be used and that don't add to the ridiculous burdens already placed on schools.
David Lewis
Immediately my reaction is, why go for people who actually were committed enough to get to university? What about the countless people who live off the state? How about offsetting their cost against what they could actually do for the community and threaten to remove benefit if they don't. Those people unable to help for any justifiable reason should be exempt.
Surely people who earn more money through work put more into the economy than those who do not have the same spending power. Therefore, why not use the people that don't have to concentrate on studies and, at the same time, give them some sort of education that they can then improve their chances of employment.
It sounds like the government needs to fill gaps in its resource pool. It needs people with enough education to be able to pass it on.
I would however say that I have never had much (need) of a notion of vocational skills so introducing these in secondary school or university as a core component would undoubtedly be useful. Provided there are actually jobs out there for all the qualified people.
I am the sole earner in my household which means that even though I'm paid above the national average, with one child and another on the way, I still need to ask for financial aid. It's not a situation I expected to be in, but that's the way it goes. I would not appreciate paying more towards my student loan when I'm going to spend the rest of my life paying it.