Serco has not reapplied to deliver the volunteering programme the National Citizen Service (NCS), despite winning the most contracts in 2012.

The NCS Trust, the independent charity who administer the NCS on behalf of government, has announced the names of 17 organisations who have joined its Regional Service Providers framework and who will now have the opportunity to bid to deliver the programme.

The bidders will compete to deliver the service in 19 regions for a 3 year period starting in 2015. Of these 17 organisations, only a small number are charities.

The announcement follows a procurement process which was launched in April 2014. A total of 24 organisations originally made bids to provide contracts, with seven being turned down.

In 2012, the private services provider Serco won the highest number of contracts to run the National Citizen Service for the two years up to 2015. Its NCS Network, which included the four charities Vinspired, NYA, UK Youth and Catch 22, ran the service in six regions across the UK.

Brian Anderson, Serco's contract director for the NCS programme, said: "We have reviewed the revised criteria that have been set by the NCS Trust for providers to join the new framework, and decided not to participate, despite this being a strategic programme for Serco.

"We will continue to work closely with the NCS Network  and we are committed to delivering the NCS programmes this autumn and next spring and summer 2015."

Doug Fraley, director of operations at the NCS Trust, said: “We’re really pleased to see so many organisations, both new and existing, join the framework, and it is particularly great to see organisations who have previously been sub-contract holders stepping up to be potential regional partners.

“We worked hard to make sure we reached out as far as we could to engage potential providers, and the quality of the framework bids we received was hugely impressive and showed a real commitment to the ambition we have for the programme to grow and improve.”

An independent evaluation by Ipsos Mori that was published last month revealed that the government backed National Citizen Service had cost the Cabinet Office £62m in 2013. The report, however, concluded that the service had provided good value for money.

It also revealed that the National Citizen Service did not meet the intended 50,000 places filled in 2013. Instead 31,738 people took part in the NCS summer programme and 7,828 in autumn.

The successful bidders will be announced next month.

The full list of 17 organisations are:

• The Challenge
• The Football League Trust
• Reed in Partnership
• Inspira
• The Lincolnshire and Rutland Education Business Partnership
• Petroc  
• New College Nottingham 
• CXK Ltd.
• Groundwork UK
• By Design Group Ltd
• Engage4Life Ltd 
• A partnership between vInspired and National Youth Agency
• Ingeus
• Twin Training
• PerTemps
• Seetec  
• Greater London Authority

This story has been updated with a comment from Serco.