V volunteers
Youth volunteering charity to be replaced by the National Citizen Service as the government's main volunteering programme for young people
The youth volunteering charity v is likely to have its funding from the Office for Civil Society reduced substantially after last week’s comprehensive spending review.
The government’s main youth volunteering programme in future will be the new National Citizen Service, intended to offer opportunities to all 16-year-olds from 2013.
V has received £117m of funding from the OCS in the 2008 to 2011 spending round. The OCS budget of £470m for the next four years, including the new £100m Transition Fund, rules out a comparable level of support in future, Third Sector understands.
The OCS will fund NCS pilots, predicted in Conservative policy documents to cost about £50m, in the next two years. Funding then will come from the Department for Education.
A spokesman for v said the charity was still waiting to hear about future funding. V had tendered to run aspects of the NCS, he said, and did not expect the new scheme to replace all other youth volunteering services. A spokesman for the OCS said no decision had been taken.
