Digital system updates

September 2025

• Lead Volunteers and Team Leaders can now view all pending, full and expired accreditations for volunteers in their unit using Member Search, in the same way they can through the Team view.

February 2025

• We're testing a new Leadership Support accreditation available for use soon, and will be sharing resources to explain what this is and how it can be used soon.
• We introduced a new Duke of Edinburgh Lead accreditation, and will be sharing resources to explain what this is and how it can be used soon. 

May 2026

• We’ve improved date filtering in Data Explorer for disclosure reporting. New filter options for 60 and 90 days have been added, along with clearer wording for existing date filters.

March 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where postal address fields were showing as “N/A” in Data Explorer and member search. Address information now displays correctly when viewing team directories and running queries.
• We’ve improving how criminal record checks are shown in Data Explorer so expired checks don’t disappear too early while a new check is in progress. An expired check will remain visible until the new check has been forwarded to authority, and will reappear if the new request is cancelled or withdrawn. Only the relevant disclosure is affected, and reporting remains accurate throughout.
• We've also made a change so that checks with the Disclosure Required status also appear in the 'Requires local action' query, to help present a complete view of tasks to complete. 
• We’ve fixed an issue where actions linked to roles were not updating correctly in Data Explorer. Changes made to member records (such as disclosures, internal checks, or references) now refresh properly so Data Explorer shows the most up-to-date information.

January 2026

• We’ve updated Data Explorer so young person data is only visible to those who need it. Adult volunteers without the appropriate permissions will not see data for members aged under 18. This ensures compliance and protects young people’s information while allowing volunteers to manage membership as needed.
• We’ve fixing an issue where the confirmation dialog stayed visible after deleting a dashboard in Data Explorer. Previously, when a dashboard was deleted, the “Yes/No” dialog didn’t close automatically, even though the deletion was successful. Now, the dialog closes as expected once the dashboard is deleted, making the process smoother and easier to use.

December 2025

• We’ve further improved Data Explorer performance. We’ve investigated the root cause with our supplier and implemented optimisations to make it faster and more responsive.
• We corrected the 'County' field in the Permit table within Data Explorer so it displays the County/Area/Region rather than the County from the postal address, making it easier to see the correct location for permits.
• We've adding role start dates to the Welcome Conversation and Learning Compliance queries to make it easier to track and understand learning progress against when a role began.
• We added Team Type and Parent Team as available fields to use in your filters and queries. 
• We've renamed and improved most Data Explorer dashboards to make it clearer what information they are showing you, and make it easier to find the data you need, without building your own personalised queries and dashboards. 
• We added explainer text to Data Explorer Dashboards so it's now clearer what data each Query is returning. 

September 2025

• We improved the Disclosures and Awards dashboards in Data Explorer to make them load faster and work more smoothly. These changes should reduce delays when viewing data, helping you to access the information you need quickly.

June 2025

• New fields to Data Explorer tables, including Accreditation, Start Date, Role Status, Communications Email, and Length of Service. This improved previous dashboards and queries that show compliance data and progress through the Joining Journey for Team Leaders and Lead Volunteers.
• Updated the way dates are formatted in Data Explorer. This will mean tables can now be sorted by date in Data Explorer, where this hadn't been working for all users.

May 2025 

• Query results now match the applied filters.
• Downloads now match what you see on screen in My Membership.
• Reports can now be downloaded, passwords are sent to emails, and download links remain valid for longer and appear in notifications.
• New Data Explorer queries have been added to help close down holding roles, to split out non-members who haven't signed in from members who haven't signed in, and to help monitor completion of the new Safety Learning course.

April 2025

• New Data Explorer queries have been added:
  • To help identify volunteers who are still in Holding Roles,
  • To split out non-members who haven't signed in from members who haven't signed in,
  • And to help monitor completion of the new Safety Learning course. 

March 2025

• Query results now match the applied filters.
• Downloads now match what you see on screen in My Membership.
• Reports can now be downloaded, passwords are sent to emails, and download links remain valid for longer and appear in notifications.

February 2025

• Filters now working for membership number, name and other fields in Data Explorer 
• Reviews can now be filtered by unit in Data Explorer 
• The counts on the Diversity and Inclusion dashboard are now accurate

January 2025

• Volunteers who haven’t had learning before are now showing on the Learning Compliance Dashboard with the relevant due dates.
• Adding emails to Data Explorer functionality is now visible.

January 2025

• Guides have been updated and now include writing new user guides for My Learning.

May 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where some volunteers received an access error when trying to request a criminal record check for a member in their unit. Volunteers can now request criminal record checks for team members within the same unit, without seeing an access error.
• We’ve improved the criminal record check request journey to make the information clearer when confirming a volunteer’s ID. Guidance on checking member details and acceptable identification is easier to see, and additional help explains what to do if the correct ID is not available.
• We've made a change so all Trustees in Scotland have the correct criminal record check in place. When a member is assigned a Trustee role, the system now automatically triggers a PVG Disclosure check if one is not already valid. This is following changes made by Disclosure Scotland.

November 2025

• Only volunteers with Full or Provisional + System roles are now synced with Atlantic Data.
• We’ve fixed an issue where some automatically created disclosure renewals didn't show up in My Membership or Data Explorer.

September 2025

• We've updated logic in the system to treat Gibraltar as a non-resident country. This means disclosure and local checks for volunteers in Gibraltar now follow non-resident rules, and UK checks will only apply if they’ve previously lived in the UK.

May 2025

• Disclosure requests are now visible to the requester, where a volunteer holds a role elsewhere in the hierarchy.
• Disclosure Support Volunteers can now process criminal record checks.
• Updates to the Disclosures wording to reflect recent changes in ID requirements in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
• Criminal record checks / disclosures can now be cancelled in Atlantic Data by the requester. 

February 2025

• Registered address is now shown when viewing a volunteer’s disclosure records (instead of ‘Postal Address’) 
• When viewing Disclosures for other volunteers, the link to Atlantic Data now shows 

January 2025

• Completed criminal record checks/disclosures and Welcome Conversations are now recognised as completed steps of the Role Approval Audit.
• More volunteers in England and Wales now have visibility in Atlantic Data to support the Volunteer Joining Journey and have the permissions to complete this.

June 2026

• We’ve added a historic view of approved Nights Away Notifications to help volunteers see past activity. Nights Away Approvers and Lead Volunteers are now able to view a list of approved Nights Away events from their unit for up to one year after the event.

May 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where searches in My Membership could return no results if extra spaces were accidentally added before or after the search term. Searches now automatically ignore leading and trailing spaces, making sure the correct member, unit or permit records are returned.
• We’ve fixed an issue where some member profiles could not be opened from search results in My Membership. In certain cases, selecting a member from the search results caused a blank screen to appear, however, profiles will now open correctly when selected from search results.
• We’ve fixed an issue where the review date shown in the roles table could appear incorrectly or display N/A. The review date now shows the correct scheduled date for the next review of that role.
• We’ve fixed an issue where some Lead Volunteers or Team Leaders could see a server error when trying to view Nights Away applications for units below them in the hierarchy. Leaders can now open and review Nights Away applications from their teams as expected, giving them the correct oversight of activities happening within their area.
• We’ve improved the wording across several areas of My Membership to make instructions clearer and easier to follow. Updates to headings, navigation labels and guidance text have been made to help make sure information is consistent and that volunteers understand what actions to take when using the system.
• We’ve fixed an issue with address lookup, so it now works as expected when entering or updating address details.

March 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where Reviews remained open even after the form had been completed. Linked actions now automatically show as completed once the review is signed off.
• We’ve added an optional parent or guardian contact section for volunteers aged under 18, including Young Leaders, Explorer Scouts and Young Helpers. This allows parent or guardian details to be recorded and used where appropriate for safeguarding and communications.
  Providing this information is optional. If added, it may be used to copy parents or guardians into relevant emails or for safeguarding purposes. These details will only be visible to authorised roles and will be automatically removed when the young person turns 18.
• We’ve made it possible to add volunteers aged under 18 to the system. This makes sure young people are added to the system through the correct journey, rather than being added via the adult volunteer process. The new option sits alongside “Add an adult” in key areas, guiding volunteers through a dedicated young person registration flow with the right age checks and role options.

January 2026

• We’ve improved the functionality for Support Centre requests, under HQ services. This allows us to customise the text based on the Case type, making it clear what information needs to be submitted.
• We can now choose whether Diversity & Inclusion data is requested, based on the roles a volunteer has. Volunteers will only be asked for information that’s relevant and appropriate for their role and age group. Nationality and legal sex will continue to be collected for everyone, while other Diversity & Inclusion details will only be requested where required. 
• We’ve addressed Declaration errors on Apple devices. Some volunteers experienced a server error when submitting the declaration.
• We've added a new Declaration for Young Leaders and for Helpers, to make sure Declaration copy is relevant to each role. 
• We’ve fixed an issue where date filters weren’t working in certain tables and on mobile. We’ve updated the date pickers so filtering works correctly across all affected tables, including multiple date fields, and behaves the same as on the desktop version.
• We've updated the Declaration text in My Membership to include information about criminal record checks in Scotland, and what you can and can't do before your result has been issued.
• We've introduced the Visiting Scotland accreditation, so Groups/Districts in Scotland can support existing Scouts volunteers from outside of Scotland to apply to join the PVG scheme. 

December 2025

• We've added a confirmation step when adding new members, so that before saving, you see a summary of the details you've entered so you can review and confirm the information - this will help prevent errors and make sure the correct details are added.
• We improved how volunteers are added to units. A new ‘Add volunteer’ tile is on the My Membership landing page, along with a menu option, making it quicker to add new or existing adult volunteers to a unit and add them to a team.
• We've made role status visible on mobile, so you can see whether a role is Provisional/Full as you would on desktop.
• We updating the Reviews logic, so when a role ends, any future-dated reviews are cancelled and current reviews are removed.
• We’ve fixed an issue with role approval audit dates where opening a role showed today’s date instead of the correct audit review date.
• We've updated the role closure reasons to match the Autumn 2025 edition of POR.

November 2025

• Actions taken in My Membership, such as managing awards and sending bulk communications, should now process without failure. This means you shouldn't need to repeat tasks or contact the Support Centre for help.
• We updated how the system checks a unit’s permission type so it looks for an exact match instead of a “similar to” match. We’ve also improved the unit search filter by calculating the unit prefix in advance and using it as a variable, which should make searches in Data Explorer and Member Search faster and more accurate.
• We’ve updating the Privacy/Visibility page so the headings in visibility settings are clearer. For example, “Address” now shows as “Postal address,” “Phone number” as “Contact number,” and “Primary email” as “Communication email.”
• There's now clearer, easy-to-understand information on the Personal Details, Diversity & Inclusion, and Medical Details pages about how and why your data is collected, who can see it, and how it’s used.
• The issue affecting References awaiting a Manual Check has been fixed. Notifications are now sent when these are received, and the server error no longer happens.

September 2025

• We've made changes to make the workflows running behind the scenes run more reliably, reducing the likelihood of 'bulk publish fail' errors, that some volunteers have been seeing when messaging, submitting applications, and adding volunteers.
• We've updated the diversity and inclusion questions to make sure fields are editable and not pre-populated, and to make it clearer about the purpose for requesting the information.
• When you apply for a minibus permit or create a support request, you’ll now see clear, easy-to-understand information about the process, payment, and who to contact for help. This ensures you know what to expect, how to complete your request, and where to reach the Support Centre if you need assistance.
• When submitting a Nights Away Notification, the venue name field will now limit you to 50 characters to prevent errors. You’ll also see a helpful message reminding you to keep the venue name short, so your application can be submitted smoothly without any technical issues.

May 2025 

• Team Leaders are now able to manage volunteers in sub-teams of their team.
• Improvements to recording and updating suspension decisions in the system, meaning that all the relevant information is available in one place.

March 2025

• Tables in My Membership are now sorted in a more helpful way. For example, the Actions table will default to showing new actions at the top.

February 2025

• Members of a Team are now visible on the Team page as well as through member search 
• The requirement to upload an attachment to a suspension investigation has been removed 
• The redundant ‘Save’ button has been removed from Role Approval Audits 
• Improvements have been made to the mobile user experience 
• Nights Away permit now in alphabetical order in permit activities 
• Volunteers removed from Nights Away applications will no longer be visible for the approver for checking compliance 

January 2025

• Security on scouts.org.uk has been made more robust with the implementation Cloudflare.
• The ‘Opening Date’ is no longer changed to the ‘Modification Date’ when you update Unit information.  
• Volunteers with roles across multiple levels can now select the correct groups and add roles and accreditations to volunteers from ‘Member Search’.  
• Wording of emails across the system has been updated for greater clarity.
• We’ve added more text to the system so it’s easier to navigate.

December 2025

• We’ve fixed learning completion status so once all required learning is done, the system correctly shows it as ‘Completed’ so roles can progress to full without delays.

November 2025

• We’ve fixed an issue where some new volunteers were not setup on My Learning, meaning they can’t access or complete their learning.
• We made an update so learning is only marked as complete on a record when the skill has been achieved. This makes sure learning status and compliance are always accurate and clear.

September 2025

• We've improved how learning data is synced between My Learning and records on My Membership to make sure your learning history is always up to date and visible in My Membership as expected.

May 2025

• New roles are no longer held from becoming full by incomplete First Response learning.
• Members' learning is now showing, when you navigate to their personal details through the list of Active Members on the Team page.

April 2025

• Wood Badges are now automatically updated in My Membership once the required learning is completed in My Learning.

March 2025

• Learning suspensions will now be automatically lifted when the required learning is completed.

January 2025

• Learning Assessors can now see all that they need to in My Learning.
• The system now quickly updates your role status once learning is completed.

May 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where criminal record check expiry notifications were not being sent to country-level volunteers and their line managers. Notifications will now be sent as expected when a criminal record check is due to expire within the next 14 days or has expired, making sure the right people are alerted to take action.
• We’ve fixed an issue where some updates in My Membership could fail to save correctly due to background system errors. This should reduce the number of “publish fail” notifications received when completing actions such as updating awards and references.

March 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue on mobile where selecting multiple notifications did not correctly mark them as read or archive them. Multi-select now works as expected on mobile, bringing the experience in line with desktop.
• We’ve fixed an issue where provisional members were unable to view archived notifications and saw an access error instead.
• We’ve fixed an issue on mobile where actions were not displaying in the correct order. Actions now keep their default sorting in both portrait and landscape views.

January 2026

• We’ve made a change so we can copy Lead Volunteer(s) and Default Team Leader(s) into emails. Following this change, a Default Team Leader will be copied into compliance emails to members. In future, we'll also bring this data into Data Explorer.
• We’ve fixed an issue where the “Is not empty” filter on Subject or Description in Notifications didn't work correctly. 
• We've updated the content in some emails sent by the system, to improve clarity, including the email volunteers receive when their last role closes, and the email volunteers receive when they have new/outstanding Actions and/or Notifications in My Membership.

December 2025

• We’ve improved notifications so you only receive an alert when there are genuinely new updates.
• We’ve improved notification management so you can archive, sort and filter notifications, making it easier to keep your notifications organised.
• We’ve improving the First Aid learning notifications so Team Leaders are only alerted when an expiry date approaches.
• We’ve improved Review reminders so notifications are sent at the correct intervals, preventing daily duplicate alerts once the review window is reached.
• We’ve completed a proof of concept, so that from the January release, emails sent by HQ can be copied to Default Team Leaders and/or Lead Volunteers - this will primarily be used to improve learning and criminal record check expiry emails. 

November 2025

• We’ve fixed how disclosure expiry notifications works so if you've already renewed your disclosure, you (and your line manager) no longer receive alerts about an older one expiring.

September 2025

• We've fixed the Actions page, as it had been showing a blank grey screen on mobile devices. It'll work as intended across all devices.
  Action reminder emails will now only be sent when an action is genuinely required.

June 2025

• We have created an email for members who are suspended with the reasons Disclosure Expired or Safety and Safeguarding learning not complete and in date. When switched on, the member will receive an email confirming their suspension, with their Lead Volunteer copied in. We will communicate with Lead Volunteers about switching this on, shortly.

May 2025

• Emails go to nominated communications email addresses.(Some system e-mails like password resets are designed to go to the login address).

March 2025

• Emails from My Learning will use correspondence email address for new volunteers.
• Emails from Scouts HQ will start to use correspondence email address (emails will transition over to our new tool during March).
• The content of some notifications has been updated.
• You will be notified if a member hasn’t completed their profile when requesting a disclosure for them.

February 2025

• The email volunteers receive when they have outstanding actions and notifications in My Membership will now be sent after 3 days (down from 7 days). 
• Notifications from My Learning switched on.

May 2026

• We’ve improved how roles and accreditations are linked to Units. When a role or accreditation is assigned at a specific unit, it now automatically applies to that unit and the units beneath it in the hierarchy.
• We’ve fixed an issue where some accreditations were incorrectly granting additional access in Atlantic Data. Accreditations now only pass the accreditation access required, while roles continue to pass the appropriate team and role permissions.

March 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where syncing permissions to sub-teams of Leadership Teams could create duplicate or incorrect permission sets. Permission syncing now updates correctly and sends a single confirmation, making sure permissions remain accurate and consistent across teams.

January 2026

• We've updated the permissions for the Chair role and Recruiter accreditation to make sure they can do what they expect to do. This means the permission sets Chairs and Recruiters hold fully match the Permissions Dashboard.
• We've also updated the permissions for Permit Assessors and Approvers - they can now see permit data in Data Explorer for members in their hierarchy, to assist with reviewing Permit applications. 
• We’ve introduced a new role type for young people aged 14-18 to make sure young people who take on volunteer roles are managed with the correct safeguarding processes, system access, and compliance rules. With this role type, the system will apply the right protections automatically, including appropriate data visibility and communication restrictions.
• We've introduced Young Leader, Explorer Scout and Young Helper roles (with limited permissions) for the purpose of carrying out PVG scheme applications in Scotland. 
• We’ve made a change so young people cannot be given an adult role until they are at least 17.5yrs. When assigning a new role to a volunteer under 17.5 years old, you'll only see the appropriate roles. Once a member turns 17.5, adult roles can be provisionally assigned, giving access to necessary learning. This will help make sure volunteers only receive communications and system functionality appropriate for their age/role.

September 2025

• We made a change behind the scenes to improve how access is given to volunteers with certain accreditations (such as First Aid Trainers or Learning Assessors). This update made sure that only the permissions specifically linked to an accreditation are applied, and that permissions are not accidentally inherited from wider team roles.

June 2025

• Permit Applications, Nights Away Notification forms, References and Award Nominations submitted by Lead Volunteers or Approvers are now available to be approved by other approvers (if appointed) in the Unit, rather than jumping up a level.

February 2025

• Update to permissions sets for accreditations 
• Update to permissions sets for roles 
• Update to permission sets for teams 
• Update of accreditation to Team mappings 

February 2025

• Group Leadership Team Permissions have been improved so Group Leadership Team Members can help manage the Group 

January 2025

• The permissions set for Team Members of the Leadership Team has been updated to allow these volunteers to see detailed information for volunteers in their hierarchy. This change applies to volunteers with a role directly in the Leadership Team (for example, volunteers who have a ‘Team Member’ role, a Youth Lead or Transformation Lead role in that team), and not to ex-officio team members.
• When creating a new sub-team, the ‘inherit permissions’ button is now set to 'no' by default. To arrange for sub-teams to inherit the permissions of the parent team, users will need to push the toggle to ‘yes’.
• Volunteers with a primary role in a sub team have appropriate system access and permissions. Sub team members can see each other, use member search, access awards, apply for permits, and view messages. Additionally, sub team Lead Volunteers can access volunteer enquiries and data explorer.

March 2026

• We’ve fixed an issue where permit prerequisites did not display correctly in My Membership. Prerequisite information now syncs and shows accurate details, rather than appearing as “N/A”.

December 2025

• We improved the guidance and help text on the Permit Application, Nights Away Request, and My Qualifications pages to make it easier to find the right information and complete tasks with confidence.
• We made it easier to see a team member’s full permit history. Lead Volunteers (including Group Lead Volunteers) and Team Leaders can now view both active and lapsed permits in My Membership, including details like activity, category, type, status, and date lapsed.

January 2025

• Permit expiry dates are now visible on My Membership.
• Permit renewals can now be submitted without any issues.

January 2025

• We applied a change to stop volunteers from being blocked when trying to sign into scouts.org.uk. We are aware that this hasn't fixed the issue for all volunteers, and are continuing to work on this. 
• We've made some security updates which will mean after 5 incorrect password attempts, the account will be locked for 30 minutes.

September 2025

• We’ve improved how reference details show up across My Membership to make sure you and your team can easily see the latest status of your references. You now get notified promptly if a reference needs extra checks, so nothing gets missed and the process moves smoothly. This will help you keep track of references clearly and know when you need to take action.
• References now include an additional option of “6-12 months” for how long you’ve known the volunteer, so you can provide a more accurate answer. You’ll only be able to select one time period, and some small wording fixes have been made to improve clarity.

May 2025 

• The Role Approval Audit no longer shows Reference/Welcome Conversations as outstanding for volunteers who previously held full roles. Guidance was shared with County/Area/Region and District Lead Volunteers on who was impacted, and the steps to take where References and Welcome Conversations were needed. Where they were not needed, we've been working on correcting data in the background. We'll continue to monitor this until all holding roles are closed down, at which point the issue should stop occurring.

January 2025

• The system no longer allows Team Leaders to record themselves as the ‘independent observer’ of a Welcome Conversation.
• References and Welcome Conversations are no longer being requested for volunteers in Holding roles or for those with data against historic roles on Compass.
• Referees now receive reference requests directly from the system.