To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to protect youth volunteering charities from financial difficulty; when his Department became aware of the financial difficulties facing vInspired; whether his Department is aware of other regional providers of the National Citizen Service who are in similar financial difficulties; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of young people affected by the closure of vInspired.

DCMS invests in youth organisations in a number of ways including the National Citizen Service and the Youth Investment and #iwill Funds in partnership with Big Lottery Fund.

Independent charities are responsible for managing their own funding through various mechanisms including donations, trading and investment; and are accountable for their own financial solvency. vInspired informed DCMS officials that they were in financial difficulties and expected to shortly commence insolvency procedures in November 2018. vInspired Education are responsible for delivering the NCS programme in the North East, however this is a separate legal entity to vInspired. We are not aware of any regional providers of NCS who are in financial difficulties.

The Department has assessed that there is no impact to young people on the NCS programme in the North East, and we do not currently hold an estimate of the number of young people who may be affected by other services vInspired provided.