Perception

Aim

For Scouts to be more visible, trusted, respected, and seen as playing a key role in today’s society.

Goal

Make sure our brand is frequently and positively seen in the public eye, sharing our key skills for life message and building trust.

Progress a year on

This year, perception of Scouts was shaped by several key moments, and three stand out in particular: welcoming HM King Charles III as our Patron, announcing Dwayne Fields as our 11th Chief Scout, and continuing to campaign for our Scouts’ Manifesto.

• In June, The King became Scouts’ Patron, continuing the Royal tradition dating back to 1912. Our young people recorded videos welcoming him, which we shared across our social media channels.
• In September, Dwayne Fields became our new Chief Scout. Dwayne is a passionate advocate for what we do. Scouts helped shape the person Dwayne is today, and now he, in turn, is shaping what we do in Scouts. In total, there were 2,400 pieces of media coverage and on social it was our top performing content, with 2.6 million impressions and 54 thousand engagements.
• Lastly, we said thank you and farewell to Bear Grylls after three impressive five-year terms as Chief Scout. During this time, two million people have been Scouts in the UK, and we’ve grown by 100,000 members. To commemorate Bear’s contribution, artist Jemma Phipps was commissioned to paint his portrait, which is now on display at Gilwell Park.

Improving our perception

• A 2025 YouGov brand perception survey shows public trust in Scouts remains high at 86%, while the perception that we’re open to all is improving at 83%. The perception that Scouts is safe has also risen to 80% from 78%, and perception that we make a positive impact in communities has risen from 78% to 81%.
• In its second year, The Big Help Out blossomed. 100 groups took part, working to improve their local areas. Scouts, along with our Ambassadors, did amazing work to raise awareness of the benefit of volunteering in your community.
• In November, on Remembrance Sunday, Dwayne Fields attended The Cenotaph, helping to form the Guard of Honour collecting and laying wreaths from organisations parading.
• On Boxing Day, Dwayne Fields guest edited BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme. This was part of a wide range of media activity from Dwayne, including the cover of The Big Issue and an interview in The Telegraph.
• In March, Tim Peake launched our new Explorer Space Activity Badge, designed to help young people aged 14 to 18 with STEM. Media coverage meant over two million people saw content related to the launch.

Attracting, recruiting, and retaining volunteers

• We promote volunteering with Scouts throughout the year. The announcement of our new Chief Scout, our highest profile volunteer role, helped support the growth in frontline volunteers by 3,000 – the biggest in-year increase since 2018.
• Through the year, we continued to share our Scouts’ Manifesto following its launch in March 2025. We gave our youth advocates a platform to share their lived experience and help us make the case for policies to support Scouts and young people. We met with over 100 Members of Parliament, government ministers and councillors during the year to ask them to support volunteering, champion young people and protect community spaces.
• We launched our volunteer leave campaign, in collaboration with Sea Cadets, Girlguiding and St John Ambulance. As part of this campaign, we’re petitioning government to grant every employee in the UK, the right to request 35 hours of volunteer leave a year. Our petition generated over 8,000 signatories within a month.

Progressing our brand

• After consulting with 26,000 young people and adults, our ‘What we wear’ project concluded. While no major changes were called for, it was clear our uniform needed to be more practical, inclusive, affordable and comfortable. In response, we made improvements to comfort and fit, introduced personalisation, expanding our range of options and informal wear. We also updated our Policy, Organisation and Rules (POR) to define the purpose of uniform and make sure it’s not a barrier to young people or adults taking part.
• We welcomed five new ambassadors: Liam MacDevitt, Zanna van Dijk, Ollie Eats, Louis Cole and Sean Conway. These inspiring new supporters, with substantial social media presences, helped extend our reach. Combined, their launch content generated 265,000 impressions and 200,000 views. It’s been another highly engaged year on social media and followers across all platforms went up by 7%.

What's next

• We’ll continue to work on our 35 hour volunteering leave campaign.
• We’re busy looking for and creating high profile moments for our Chief Scout and Ambassadors. Through them, we’ll continue to raise awareness of what Scouts does.
• In everything we do, our focus continues to be promoting safe adventures through Scouts.