Headlines from the February 2022 District and County/Area/Region online calls

If you missed it, here are the key takeaway points from the calls.

Please do listen to the full District recording and County/Area/Region recording for more support on these areas. 

Our growth and recovery from the pandemic 

Recruitment support 

• The Regional Service Team continue to run online webinars for any member in UK Scouts, to support with recruitment.  A new programme of webinars and face to face support is being planned and will be shared for the rest of 2022 shortly.  
• New ‘Bring a Friend’ night guidance has been added to website as we introduce another part of the Good For You campaign, with Scouts as being ‘Good For Two’. We know people are over 50% more likely to volunteer if they can do it with someone they know. 

Support we are providing for recovery  

• Census is ongoing at the moment which will give us our new numbers for 2022 and how the recovery from the pandemic is going. The Recovery Fund is back open to provide financial support to those struggling to afford the costs of keeping Scouts going locally - applications close on 11 March.  

Funding to support to sections lost during the pandemic 

• We are also looking at how we can use some of the money from the Baden Powell House proceeds to recover Groups and Sections that closed during the pandemic. You have told us that there are around 1000 sections that have regrettably closed across the UK where we know there is demand and the local area wants to see them reopened, but resources are required to get them back open again. We are putting £1 million aside for this Skills for Life fund for which we will build a framework on how people can access that money.  

Safe Scouting 

Support – Safety and Safeguarding training 

• We want to support managers to deal with overdue Safety and Safeguarding training locally. We talked through new things in place to help solve some of the situations you are facing locally  

• • • Better guidance on webpages 
    • Clearer suspension rule
    • Introduction of Retired Member Role
    • Clear process for dealing with extenuating circumstances 

First aid training and risk assessments 

• Last February there were 21,500 who needed first aid training – and this number is now more like 9000. Thank you for such great efforts in getting teams through the training and updated. We will continue to prompt and remind people to get their training in date. We may, in time, need to undertake the same process as we’re introducing for safety & safeguarding training but this is not required currently. The numbers are going in the right direction for now. 
• To provide your Group Scout Leaders, Explorer Scout and Scout Network Commissioners with more support on risk assessments there is a webinar on 24 February. There are 350 already signed up to this, so please encourage your teams to attend. 

Support – Inclusion – Squirrels  

• An area where we are seeing incredible our growth in communities underrepresented in Scouting is through Squirrels. A quick update on how it is going - we aimed to have 300 Dreys open by March and this number is more like 530 – with 444 Squirrel Dreys in Compass.  Please continue to encourage Groups to open Dreys but also give thought to opening new Dreys in communities where Scouting isn’t currently established. 

Support – Inclusion 

• We’ve completed a race equity review of Scouts by an independent expert where many conversation took places with staff and volunteers. The UK Board of Trustees have accepted the review and we now need people to be part of the response to what we do next. A consultation will be going live on the Testing Hub during February, and we will highlight this in an upcoming email to members. 

Jamboree 

• The team at Unity are working hard to find insurance solutions for the Jamboree in South Korea in 2023.  The Coronavirus pandemic has had a massive impact on Event Cancellation, We have sourced an insurer willing to provide travel insurance which includes cancellation for individuals who are unable to travel due to virus related issues. With regard to the Event Cancellation insurance cover (this is related to the approx. £700 per participant fee that is paid to the event organisers) this can be sourced for all the normal risks apart from the event being cancelled due to Government restrictions prohibiting travel due to the virus. However, we have found a couple of insurers who have not declined this element of cover outright but are prepared to consider and research the risk in more detail. We will provide an update at the end of February on how this is going. 

Info Centre 

• We are looking to run a trial of extending the opening hours into the evenings a few nights a week. We will be offering a call back service for those who need to speak directly with an adviser. 

Uniform 

• We acknowledge the pressure there has been on uniform supply recently. It continues to be a challenge and there is a pressure in retail across the board. We are getting new stock in as quickly as we can to replace stock. We are expecting significant delivery in late Spring and all our orders have been increased for the rest of the year so we can get back to always having six months of uniform always in the warehouse. Given the recent volatility in the global supply of goods it is no surprise that costs of production have risen.  Our retail prices for uniform will increase from 1st April 2021. Through hard work with the supplier, we’ve managed to keep it to a 4-6% increase across all uniform lines, this is the first cost price increase in 4 years. This means around 50p more on Beaver and Cub sweatshirts and polo shirts for example. Squirrels uniforms will not increase as they have already been bought in bulk.  

Preparing for next steps in delivering our Skills for Life plan 

• And as we have talked about in these calls, we continue to make progress on 

• • • Digital tools to track young people progress 
    • Review 14-24 
    • Transform adult recruitment 
    • Simpler training 
    • Develop resources to promote the benefit for Scouting 
    • What we wear 
• One area that is making good headway is the first phase of improving our volunteer experience. We’re working on lots of improvements based on feedback from members and non-members.  To begin with this first phase will include: 

• • • How we volunteer 
    • A warmer welcome for everyone 
    • A more engaging learning experience 
    • More support to help get everyday things done 

• You can see the plans and consultations that are live or have happened over the last few months on the Testing Hub. This area will see headline changes such as:  

• • • All volunteering roles will change – this may range for a title change, to some roles not existing and everything in between. 
    • All learning will change – so the structure and methods of how we do training – will change 
    • The way in which we welcome new volunteers into Scouts will change – we are collecting views now on the Testing Hub around the changes proposed to the appointment process 
    • And it will move on from Compass and find new solutions for managing membership data 
• We also mentioned on the last calls that we are progressing conversations with OSM to provide a national youth management solution – which is still the case. 

Transformation Lead 

• For that reason, County, Area and Region Commissioners have an important role in championing change and we are asking Counties, Areas and Regions to identify someone else, to be the Transformation Lead for your County, Area or Region.   
• The Transformation Lead will be someone who is committed to driving forward our Skills for Life Strategy, helping to plan for and lead change locally. 
• More information has been sent to County Commissioners (and equivalents) to support on finding their Transformation Lead and on how to build a team to attend Basecamp22. Basecamp 22 is an exciting get-together of key volunteers in Scouts at Manchester University on 13-15 May 2022 to energise, engage and empower ourselves and our teams to prepare for the changes ahead.  County/Area/Region Commissioner are invited to attend and form a delegation. This should will include Youth Commissioner/18 – 24 year old in your team, Transformation lead and remaining spaces filled from District Commissioner team or other members of the County/Area/Region team who will play a key part in the next few years. 

Leading your teams – takeaways from this call 

• Help share how everyone can see what is being looked at on Testing Hub and have their change to get involve and be consulted  
• Help teams know that keeping data clean and update to date on Compass is key 
• Start talking about what is coming up so no surprises for volunteers  - strategy pages on website can help give overview 

2022 is all about preparing for the changes, nothing is changing this year and so everyone should continue with their processes as normal, no one should stop doing anything.