Time for compulsory national community service?

By Rob Williams

Following the riots last month, there have been, unsurprisingly, calls for the introduction of compulsory national service. Indeed, not just calls but a promise of action from the Prime Minister.

David Cameron has called for every teenager in the country to undertake national service in the ­community, pledging an all-out effort to mend Britain’s “broken society”. Cameron’s proposal is for an expansion of his National Citizen Service programme of voluntary work to foster traditional values of “discipline, duty and decency”.

Lets hope there is more than simply empty words in this promise, because this is something the left should embrace, not oppose. Last year, don’t forget, Cameron promised national citizens service, but nothing happened. Going a little further back, Gordon Brown called for a million extra young people to get involved in voluntary work when he launched the “Year of the Volunteer” in 2005, and hinted that the government was considering a new “British corps” modelled on the United States ‘ Peace Corps. Not much happened there, either.

Calls for national service have probably been a constant theme ever since the last national serviceman put away his boots in 1963. More than 20 years ago there were also calls for a national community service programme. The debate was fractured between those that advocated some level of compulsion and those arguing for purely voluntary participation. In the end, the divisions didn’t matter and the idea was left dead in the water, consigned to the wider extremes of the Thatcherite right and subsequently deemed completely ‘off message’ when New Labour was elected.

But back to the present debate. Firstly, let me be absolutely clear. I am not advocating or supporting any form of compulsory military service or conscription. In any case, the military are not likely to be particularly enthused about taking thousands of young men and trying to turn them into soldiers in any case.

What the centre left should seriously be considering, however, is the introduction of compulsory civic duties for all young people, both men and women and across social classes. Volunteering is about free choice, National community service is quite another thing and, though it may involve some choice, over timing and the type of work and training to be undertaken, it should not easily be avoided. There should be very few exemptions from the scheme.

Because compulsory national community service would genuinely offer opportunity for many, even all, not the few.

I am advocating a period of between one year and 18 months, where young people are compelled to work, to be trained where possible, and to engage with their peers. Proposals to spend a few weeks in the summer, or even a few months are simply not long enough periods of time to have any impact on the young people taking part, or long enough to allow for any thorough training or skill acquisition.

Within a compulsory scheme, there should be an element of choice within the compulsory framework, a recognition that people have different skills, interests and abilities, and also may have existing obligations – looking after family members, for example.

There is a similarity to the Duke of Edinburgh scheme in the proposals, in that young people would have to undertake service to individuals or the community. This could include working on environmental projects to clean up public spaces, parks and canal banks. The work could also include working as hospital porters (an ideal job for aspiring doctors, seeing life at the coalface), or helping to deliver care to the elderly and long term sick.

One scenario would offer three broad options of where to spend your National Community Service, either based in the local area, elsewhere in the UK or overseas. Exceptionally talented individuals may have the chance to spend time overseas, rather than permitting gap years abroad to be the exclusive preserve of the middles classes.

Compulsion is not a necessarily a negative concept. We have to pay our taxes, and children must be in full time education to the age of 16. But because compulsion can be a good thing, then a national community service scheme should not be turned into a boot camp. Rewards for excellent performance, not just for turning up on time, should be the carrots. For those who refuse to engage, there must be sticks. Sanctions could include properly enforced curfews, or restricted access to the internet.

Young people not only need boundaries but often desperately desire some sort of order and structure to their lives. It is not patronising to say that many young people need direction and guidance.

One of the troubles of a certain type of liberal thinking we have endured for many years is that setting limits is somehow wrong, that we interfere with the “rights” of the individual, and that we must be “non-judgmental”. This path has led us to a position where young people have set their own boundaries, often far away from what is acceptable behaviour, and the notion of respect means “I can do whatever I want without consideration of anyone else”. The outcomes are certainly not liberal. Too many on the left have failed to understand what civil society actually means and requires.

So learning that with rights go responsibilities is a fundamental reason to introduce compulsory national community service. This is part of the positive basis for the introduction of such a scheme. Increasing political concern with citizenship and community involvement certainly should be good enough reasons for introducing a scheme in their own right.

The notion of “rights and responsibilities”, is a far more positive concept than that of simple “duty”. Surely the opportunities of training, practical qualifications and chances to travel either in the UK or elsewhere more than justify an obligation to “serve” the community, which is, or should be, a good thing in any case.

But there is also an equally urgent, though more ‘negative’ rationale for a discussion: the increasing divisions in society between the included and the excluded and between different ethnic groups. There are no longer any common reference points between more privileged young people and those who are more disadvantaged.

We live in a society where many young men are so restricted in their outlook that they have never taken a bus outside their postcode because of a fear of violence.

National community service should be a common rite of passage, shared by all young people. We do not have these rites of passage any more. Former National Servicemen often fondly remember the camaraderie and friends they made, if not square bashing

“Think not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community,” as JFK could have phrased it.

For those on the political right, then national community service could become a genuine exemplar of the Big Society.

This article is a brief outline of possibilities. An open, public debate around the themes of a compulsory national community service programme is urgently needed.