Simplifying how we volunteer together with new roles and structures

Slide 1   

We’re planning to introduce a teams-based approach to volunteering in Scouts. Whilst we know that many areas make teams-based volunteering work well already, our structures and rules are not yet set up in this way.   

We’ll therefore be moving away from our current approach of volunteers taking on one or more specific roles from a long list, to instead focus on the tasks that volunteers can do within teams to support great programmes.  

Changing the focus from specific roles to team tasks is one way we can make flexible volunteering normal, and available to everyone. We want to make it easier for a more diverse range of people to contribute to Scouts in a way that reflects their skills, interests and availability.   

Slide 2  

We know that some teams already approach volunteering in this way and it really works for them – we’re looking at sharing this effective working more widely.  

When we introduce this new framework, each team will have a clear list of tasks, some of which are for the whole team, and others can be done by one or more individuals. Beyond that, it’s down to the team to decide how they organise themselves, based on their skills, interests and availability.   

So for any team, we may have 5 volunteers, who will each be involved with different parts of the team’s activities, but they can agree themselves which one or more of them is involved – or not – with each task.   

We don’t need to divide our responsibilities up based on who’s registered on the membership system with many different role titles as we do at the moment. This is an opportunity to be far more flexible in how we volunteer with Scouts, allowing people to volunteer in the way that works for them, rather than being constrained by a very narrow role.    

We’ll do similar for the District Commissioner and County Commissioner roles. We want to make it normal for their responsibilities to be shared across a Leadership Team. How this Leadership Team is comprised will depend on each individual District or County, but it would include each Team Leader, as well as other volunteers if you’d like. But importantly, it’s moving us towards an ethos of sharing the tasks out rather than expecting the District Commissioner or County Commissioner to do everything themselves.  

This means that we’ll be removing our current Role Descriptions, and replacing them with new Team Descriptions. The Team Description describes the set of tasks that the team is together responsible for, but it’s down to the team to work out how they allocate these tasks amongst themselves. Teams locally will of course have some flexibility to adapt things to best suit local needs.   

In this video and the consultation documents, we use the terms District Commissioner and County Commissioner. We have already committed to changing these for more modern titles which better reflect the people leadership nature of the roles, and the consultation on alternatives is also now online. We have also used the term ‘County’ as shorthand, where in some localities these are known as Areas, Regions, Islands or Bailiwick.  

Slide 3 

Here is an overview of the District teams.   

The District Commissioner role (and County Commissioner too) is a really clear example of where we really feel the impact of some of the current challenges. 

DCs and CCs have given a huge amount of feedback on this and taking this on board, we know we need to address the volume and breadth of these roles, how hard it can be to recruit at times, and the challenges that this can cause for individuals, the District or County teams, and ultimately for what we’re able to deliver to young people.   

Responding to these challenges, our District in the future has the following clearly defined teams:  

• Leadership team – this provides leadership and inspiration to the teams in the District and to its Groups, helping them all to work effectively together.   

• Programme team – this helps all Sections in the District to deliver a safe and enjoyable programme  

• Volunteering development team – which looks after all our volunteers, whether they are new to Scouts or have been with us for years  

• and the Support team – which keeps the district running smoothly day to day, such as looking after the local campsite or supporting new provision.  

Alongside these four teams, we have the Trustee Board – the team which really clearly leads on governance.   

And we also have our Groups and the District's Explorer and Network activities – as an essential part of the leadership of the District. Good practice we know that’s already in place in lots of Districts right now.   

Slide 4 

And here’s the same team structure for a County/Area/Region.  Again – we have the four same teams:  
 

• Leadership team – this is similar to the District Leadership Team, in that it provides leadership and inspiration across the County, including each of the District Commissioners. 
• Programme team – here at County level, focussing on events that are more effectively delivered at scale, and ensuring there are sufficient activity assessors available 
• Volunteering Development team – which looks after volunteers in the County Teams, including the District Commissioners 
• And again Support team –  the Trustee Board. 

Now let’s look into a bit more of the detail of each team.   

Slide 5 

Let’s start off with the Leadership team 

So you probably already have a leadership team.  

And the overall purpose of the leadership team is as you’d expect it to be: effective and joined up leadership of all aspects of the District (or Area, County, Region...)  

Just as we’ve said every team needs a leader, every District needs to be led –and to do this we bring together the leads of each of the key teams – including for Groups and our 14-24 provision   

This team is there to lead, inspire and motivate volunteers across the district.

Support those teams to deliver their purpose and to respond to challenges and change as they arise.   

We’ll keep our description here light touch because we know for many of you this is how or close to how you operate already.

We want to support everyone to work in this way and to benefit from this strong leadership. And we want to build in this approach of sharing tasks and responsibilities so it doesn’t all sit on DC shoulders... and can be adaptable and sustainable over time.    

Slide 6 

And alongside this, let’s consider the Programme team.

You already have volunteers supporting Programme in different ways – and this team brings them together. Section specialists, activity specialists, Permit holders and wider volunteers keen to share their skills to help deliver a great Programme   

The flexible structure of this team responds to some of the challenges highlighted in our research and that we understand day to day.

In particular it reduces the reliance on individuals (we know the problems an ADC vacancy and gap in support can bring) and a tendency to sometimes work in silos.  

Depending on the size of your District and the number of volunteers you have, you might choose not to have volunteers with section-specific roles, but to instead have one or two volunteers who can bring people together to share ideas and run events. This is an approach that’s worked well in parts of British Scouting Overseas for several years – for them, the Beaver leaders are their experts in Beavers, for example.  

The new structure also brings together any existing SASUs you may have, as well as volunteers with an activity permit or a skill to share. Within any given District there are so many people with fantastic skills and expertise to share, bringing the team together makes it easier to make the most of what those talented individuals and groups have to share – to bring the maximum benefit to young people.   

Slide 7 

So, now we’ll explore our next teams – the Volunteering Development team.  

This team brings together all aspects of what makes for a positive volunteer experience, ensuring the Volunteer Culture is put into practice, that volunteers have a great welcome and there’s a culture of proactive recruitment, that everyone is supported to learn the skills they need and want, that volunteers are appreciated and their efforts and achievements recognised.  

You might think of this as an evolution of a ‘people’ or ‘adult support’ team that you may already have – now with really clear ownership of all tasks related to volunteers’ experience – so we can really realise that vision we talked about in the plenary of an easy, enjoyable and joined up experience for every volunteer.

Now while that‘s a fairly easy concept to describe, we know bringing these functions together is likely quite different to how your teams are set up at the moment and that processes are changing too.  

It will take some reflection on your particular team and volunteers to bring this group together in the way that works best for you - you’ll likely have some people that continue to focus on specific areas, for eg Welcome and Learning; while others might like more flexibility across the team and its themes. It will allow you to play to the strengths of team members who are strong on delivering/overseeing delivery of the relevant tasks and processes, while others take a more strategic role.  

Slide 8 

And finally, we’ll take a look at the Support team  

Here we’ve grouped together some really key elements of keeping a District running smoothly  
 
Going to flexibility again – here's a team where you can really play to the strengths of the volunteers you have in your team and that you’d like to have in your team. 

Let’s take the example of Safety/SG incidents – You might here have a team member/members with expertise in this area who can take a lead on this; alternatively it might be something you choose to keep this more closely part of the leadership tasks you hold within the District  as you may do now. 

If you have a campsite, your campsite service team will sit here  

If you have a website, the volunteers who look after this will be part of this team as well as people who engage with community and open new provision.   

These elements are just as important to delivering a great experience for young people. This team  is about being able to support the effective functioning of the District in a really flexible and practical way. 

Slide 9  

Alongside this video, we’re sharing our current draft Team Descriptions for District and County. Please do take some time to read through the drafts and feedback your thoughts to us in the linked survey. We’re open to feedback on broad themes and ideas which occur to you when looking at these, as well as any finer points of detail that you spot.   

All of the feedback will help us to shape the team descriptions and the future of volunteering at Scouts. Thank you.  

Slide 1 

We’re making our role titles more appealing and more understandable, including changing what we will call Commissioners in the future 

Slide 2 

We are reimaging our local leadership roles – Group Scout Leader, District Commissioner and County Commissioner. We know how important these roles are as leaders of volunteer teams. Alongside reshaping these roles to lead a close team to share tasks and responsibilities with others, we also want to make sure that the role titles are more understandable to existing volunteers as well as those who don’t currently volunteer with Scouts. Our new teams-based approach to volunteering will impact many of our existing roles, with it being easier for us to share responsibilities amongst a team of volunteers. Assistant and Deputy Commissioner roles no longer existing in their current form with their responsibilities incorporated across the District/County team. Our Section roles and role titles will also be changing.  

Slide 3 

You may have already fed back on a range of possible options in our last request for input from current volunteers. There were some great insights into what people felt the Commissioner title represented for them, such as reflecting seniority and being different to work titles. Using the term ‘manager’ could make the role sound too corporate, and it highlights a difference between ‘managing’ and ‘leading’ teams, especially of volunteers. We also asked over 2,000 people who do not currently volunteer with Scouts. It is important that Scout’s language is understood by those who may volunteer with us in future, as well as those who come across us in the community. We know that many people already say different words for their title on things such as LinkedIn or when talking to people not involved in Scouts.  

Slide 4 

Informed by this research, we have decided that going forward, we will no longer use the term ‘Commissioner’ to describe our leadership volunteers. Instead, the frontrunner options are District Team Leader and District Lead Volunteer. Each of these could be reframed in how they are used, for example you could be the ‘Team Leader for Somewhere Scouts’ or ‘Lead Volunteer for Somewhere Scouts’.  

We want to make sure people have had an option to feed in to make the final decision between these two titles, as we know that this is an area that people have asked for further input into. The new titles will then be shared in the autumn.  

Slide 1: 

Title  

Slide 2: 

It’s important that Scouts is a great place to volunteer, where every volunteer matters, and every volunteer has fun. We want to live this in how we treat each other and take part in our roles. This will encourage new people to join us and for those already involved to stick around. In some areas, Scouts is a great place to volunteer and we want to use the great things already happening to make sure that’s the case everywhere.   

Slide 3 

To make sure volunteering feels easier and more fun, we think we need to be clear what every volunteer can expect from Scouts and what’s expected from them in return. One of the Scout values is integrity – we’re honest, trustworthy and loyal. That’s why we’re proposing to clearly define our culture in a written statement, so that we have a shared understanding about what it means to be a volunteer at Scouts. This culture statement would complement the Scout Promise and values. We’ve been updating what we think this statement will include, based on feedback from volunteers including through the testing hub. The document is shared on the page.  

Slide 4 

We’ll use this statement at existing touchpoints with volunteers, rather than this being something separate to implement. For example: 

• For new volunteers, the culture statement would be a page on the website, so they can see this before applying. It would also be part of a conversation in the welcome process and in their core learning.  
• For current volunteers, we’re thinking it’ll be an electronic document or card (like the yellow card) that could be referred to in reviews and check ins with teams, as well as part of the process when volunteers leave Scouts.  

We’re keen to know where else you think the culture statement could become a part of current processes? 

Slide 5 

We know that culture won’t change just with a statement. Together, all of the changes that are being introduced will make steps in the right direction to improve consistency in the experience of volunteers. Please answer the questions in the linked form to have your say and thank you for all your input to shape this so far.  

We’re planning to introduce a teams-based approach to volunteering in Scouts. Whilst we know that many areas make teams-based volunteering work well already, our structures and rules are not yet set up in this way.

We’ll therefore be moving away from our current approach of volunteers taking on one or more specific roles from a long list, to instead focus on the tasks that volunteers can do within teams to support great programmes.

Changing the focus from role to team tasks is one way we can make flexible volunteering normal, and available to everyone. We want to make it easier for a more diverse range of people to contribute to Scouts in a way that reflects their skills, interests and availability.

We know that some Section Teams already approach volunteering in this way and it really works for them – we’re looking at sharing this effective working more widely.

When we introduce this new framework, each team will have a clear list of tasks, some of which are for the whole team, and others can be done by one or more individuals. Beyond that, it’s down to the team to decide how they organise themselves, based on their skills, interests and availability. 

So for a Section Team, we may have five volunteers, who all need to ensure a safe environment for their activities to take place in, but they can agree themselves which one or more of them communicates with parents, develops programme ideas, updates badge records in Online Scout Manager, and so on. 

We don’t need to divide our responsibilities up based on who’s registered on the membership system as a Section Leader, Assistant Section Leader or a Section Assistant. This is an opportunity to be far more flexible in how we volunteer with Scouts, allowing people to volunteer in the way that works for them, rather than being constrained by ‘what it says on the system’.  

We’ll do similar for the Group Scout Leader role. We want to make it normal for their responsibilities to be shared across the Group Leadership Team. How this Group Leadership Team is comprised will depend on each individual Scout Group, but it would include each Section Team Leader, as well as other volunteers if you’re lucky enough to have them. But importantly, it’s moving us towards an ethos of sharing the tasks out rather than expecting the Group Scout Leader to do everything themselves.

This means that we’ll be removing our current Role Descriptions, and replacing them with new Team Descriptions. The Team Description describes the set of tasks that the team is together responsible for, but it’s down to the team to work out how they allocate these tasks amongst themselves.

 Alongside this video, we’re sharing our current draft Team Descriptions for Section Teams, the Group Leadership Team and Group Trustee Board. Please do take some time to read through the drafts and feedback your thoughts to us in the linked survey. We’re open to feedback on broad themes and ideas which occur to you when looking at these, as well as any finer points of detail that you spot.

All of the feedback will help us to shape the team descriptions and the future of volunteering at Scouts.

Across Scouts, we see that people work best and enjoy what they do when they are a member of a team. Teamwork is an important skill for life that young people learn from Scouts. Teams work best when they share a common goal, and each individual team member is clear about their contribution to the team effort and its outcomes. 

You can see this in many places already – for example Section Leadership Teams – but it is also the case that many volunteers in Scouting are just left or expected to get on with things themselves. Think of within your district and there will probably be several teams that are working well and truly enjoying what they’re doing. But you can probably also think of some volunteers who find themselves working as individuals and feel less supported with their volunteering. 

For the future, we want to capture the essence of the best teams and apply it to all. Teams should be our default and our roles set up in that way. What makes a good team?  Well, of course it starts with the people. But they will be clear about their common purpose, focused on ensuring that Scouting delivers great programmes to as many young people as possible. And finally, each team member will know their part in the team and what they’re expected to do, so that everyone can take part with confidence. With purposeful teams delivering – or supporting the delivery – of great programmes, the final key component is unlocked – volunteers enjoying themselves and having fun! 

Team members like you should be able to agree between yourselves how best to operate.  So, for example, one District Team may organise differently from the next door District – but still achieve very similar outcomes for the young people in each District. One Section Leadership team may operate differently from another and yet still achieve the same great outcome for young people. It’s up to you how you share out the things that need to get done between the team, depending on each team member’s interests, skills and availability, so that each person can bring their unique self to Scouts. 

We’ve heard that some people would like to be able to share the load and this is also attractive to new volunteers.The work on Welcome will support you to grow your team fitting in with what someone would like to offer.  

Ultimately, by transitioning to teams-based volunteering, volunteers can do tasks that best suit their own skills and interests rather than what’s just in the typical role description.  

Please feedback to us through the questions to have your say in shaping this. Thank you. 

How we propose to structure our volunteering roles around our core purpose of delivering amazing programmes.  

At the Scouts, our core purpose is to prepare young people with skills for life. Those skills for life are delivered through our programme, in all aspects – weekly meetings, activities, trips, camps, and so on. 

As volunteers, we need to remember why Scouts exists and make sure what we do contributes towards that so that each of us is confident that we have made a difference. We want to have the most impact with the time we give. 

From this graphic you can see that participation in great programme is what attracts and retains young people. 

The programme is largely delivered by Section Leadership Teams – volunteers who directly support young people to take part in a safe, fun, enjoyable and high-quality programme.  

All of the other roles give support to volunteers who deliver those programmes. Those ‘delivery’ volunteers need effective support. 

Specialist skills are needed, especially for activities. All of our volunteers need learning support for the skills that relate to their role in their team. Funding, equipment and many other resources are required. Governance volunteers ensure that organisations are effectively managed to get the best out of the resources available. Leadership volunteers set the vision to keep everyone on the same track and working together at their best. Programme delivery couldn’t happen without these support structures. It should be clear to all people how they fit into our purpose.   

By structuring our roles around our core purpose, our mindsets will also be focussed on improving the lives of young people. We want all volunteers to feel like they’re making a difference. Please feedback to us through the questions to have your say in shaping this. Thank you.