Prevention of Further Deaths Progress Report April-July 2024

Each quarter the Scout Association reports our progress on the commitments that we made when we responded to HM Coroner’s Prevention of Future Deaths notice (PFD) following the inquest into the tragic death of Explorer Scout Ben Leonard.  

This response was made on 18 April 2024, setting out 24 commitments to address HM Coroner’s concerns.  

We promised to publicly update on our progress every three months within the first year, and then annually within a new Safety Report from April 2025.  

The report outlines the specific work we have completed from April to July 2024 and the next commitments we are taking forward in the forthcoming three months. 

In Summary

Since the inquest concluded in February 2024 we have worked tirelessly to address the concerns raised by the PFD. We have introduced new governance approaches, with a dedicated Board sub-group overseeing the delivery of our commitments made within our PFD response. We have also undertaken significant engagement with our members to state our promise to change and the reasons for this. We have also engaged with partners and charities to candidly update on progress and seek feedback. 

From April to July 2024 we had 15 commitments to complete or initiate. We have either completed or made strong progress on all areas.  

Work completed includes: 

• Fatal Accident Investigation into the death of Ben was commissioned and concluded. The independent panel’s recommendations have all been accepted by the Board of Trustees. We have shared the report with Ben’s family and HM Coroner. 
• TSA's internal Critical Incident and Investigation Policy has been updated in line with our commitments and we have created a new Fatal Incident Investigation process and new Family Support Model.
• Working with an external independent reviewer the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) is leading a full review of all our policies, procedures and safety practices within Scouts, as well as review our training needs, to support the design of supplementary safety training for all volunteers (described below).  
• Commissioned new supplementary training for 145,000 volunteers which will be designed by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
• Duty of Candour Policy has been developed and adopted. 

Where we have not been able to yet fully deliver on a commitment, we outline the reasons with a plan to ensure that we deliver as promised.   

In addition to our PFD commitments, during this first three-month period we have also: 

• Undertaken a significant movement wide assessment of key safety measures to provide assurances that we are delivering the safest levels of Scouts today.
• Recruited new independent Board-level safety committee members with the relevant expertise and credentials to further improve scrutiny, expertise and oversight.
• Continued to engage with our regulator the Charity Commission. Our UK Chief Volunteer, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Chief Executive and Executive Director Operations have met with them on three separate occasions following the conclusion of the inquest. We have spoken at length with them about our plans, actions to date, future proposed actions and governance.

We remain steadfast on our original promises to deliver transformative change, and we hope this first report outlines the key steps we have made, and continue to make, in relation to improving safety within the Scout movement.