Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of young people taking part in the National Citizen Service since its inception have had a registered disability.

Mr Rob Wilson

In 2011, 16% of NCS participants declared a disability or health problem expected to last more than a year, compared to 12% in the comparable population as recorded by the National Pupil Database. In 2012, 15% of NCS participants declared a disability, compared to 12% in the comparable population as recorded by the National Pupil Database.

The NCS Trust, the independent organisation which has delivered NCS since 2013, does not mandate the recording of information about registered disability or health problems by providers.

However, the NCS Trust does capture self-declared Special Educational Needs information. In 2013, 4.5% of NCS participants had Special Educational Needs; in 2014, 3.6%. Data for 2015 will become available in due course. For comparison, in both the January 2013 School Census and January 2014 School Census, 2.8% of schoolchildren had a Special Educational Needs statement or Educational, Health and Care (EHC) plan.