How we operate

The Scout Association exists by authority of a Royal Charter granted by King George V in 1912 and supplemented by further Charters granted by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. These Charters give authority to the Bye-Laws of the Association, which are approved by Her Majesty’s Privy Council. The Bye Laws, in turn, authorise the making of rules for the regulation of the Association’s affairs. The rules are laid out in the Association’s Policy, Organisation and Rules.

This report and financial statements cover the activities directly controlled by the Association – charity numbers 306101 (England and Wales) and SCO38437 (Scotland). This includes its six wholly owned subsidiary companies – Scout Shops Limited, Scout Insurance Services Limited, Scout Insurance (Guernsey) Limited, Scout Services Limited, Scout Products Limited and World Scout Shop Limited (see note 12 to the financial statements for further information on these Companies). During the year, Scout Insurance (Gurnsey) Limited was liquidated. All processes were completed, and the assets and liabilities were transferred to The Scout Association as at 9 December 2021.

The activities of the Scout Councils of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales together with Scout Counties, Areas, Regions (Scotland), Districts and Groups are not reflected in this report and accounts. These bodies are autonomous charities affiliated to the Association, which together form the Scout Movement in the United Kingdom.

The Board of Trustees

The management of the Association’s business is vested in the Board of Trustees. The Board has 20 members:

• 12 members nominated and elected by the Council of The Scout Association at the AGM: nine elected members and three elected youth members
• 5 members appointed by the Council at the AGM on the recommendation of the Board: the Chair of the Board, the Treasurer and up to three others
• 3 Ex-Officio Members, the Chief Executive and UK Chief Commissioner, and the UK Youth Commissioner.

We provide an induction for all new Trustees and all Trustees take part in further training and development opportunities throughout the year.

In 2021-22, this included a training and development session, which focused on one or more areas material to the Association’s business, including:

1. Risk Management

2. Safety

3. Charity Finance and the associated responsibilities of the Board

4. Race Equity workshops

The Board’s responsibility includes policy making and oversight of risk management. It delegates the day-to-day management of the Association to the Chief Executive and UK Chief Commissioner, who work in partnership with the UK Chief Commissioner’s Team, (UK Leadership Team), the UK Youth Commissioner and his team, and the Executive Leadership Team.

The Board also delegates certain functions to the six Committees which report to it (Strategy and Delivery, Finance, People and Culture, Nominations and Governance, Safeguarding, and Safety). The Board appoints Trustees to serve on these Committees annually, with the Committee Chair having a three-year term, subject to performance and their continuation as a Trustee. The Board met nine times formally during 2021/22.

Policies and rules

The Association has a comprehensive set of policies and rules applicable to the movement, which are regularly reviewed by senior volunteers, senior management and staff employed across the UK. We’re committed to providing the best possible experience for everyone in Scouts, whether they’re young people or adult 68 volunteers. To help us achieve this, we work to a number of key policies, through which we can make sure that Scouts continues to develop in a way that’s safe, accessible and free from discrimination.

Our key policies include:

• Equal opportunities policy
• Privacy and data protection policy
• Religious policy
• Safeguarding policy
• Safety policy
• Vetting policy
• Youth member anti-bullying policy

Risk management

The Board of Trustees is responsible for identifying, assessing and managing the risks of The Scout Association and its subsidiaries. The Board of Trustees and its committees operate a comprehensive risk management process to make sure that appropriate steps are taken to manage and mitigate governance, external, operational (including safety and safeguarding), legal/regulatory and financial risks. The undertaking of Scouts activities requires risk identification and its reasonable mitigation, to make sure our charitable objectives are achieved.

The process involves the identification and grouping of the risks that the Association faces, both directly and indirectly, through the activities of the movement more generally. It includes evaluating the risks in terms of their potential impact and likelihood to occur, as well as considering the Association’s appetite for those risks, and identifying means whereby they can be mitigated and managed.

Responsibility for risk management is assigned to members of the Executive Leadership Team, UK Leadership Team (senior volunteers) and Chairs of the Board’s reporting committees, as well as the Boards of its subsidiaries.

The Board reviews its major risks throughout the year. The safety and safeguarding of young people involved in Scouts are our highest priorities.

Other major risks to the organisation include:

• Public Trust – reputational damage due to public perception, historical issues or external factors.
• Growth
• Data security, specifically an information security breach
• Digital delivery and adoption
• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
• Management and Oversight of our federated structure

In all cases, the above risks are either being mitigated or controlled. All risks have been reviewed and adapted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A recently identified risk is around ensuring we have the right working culture and employer offer to recruit and retain talent. The Board has referred this to the People and Culture Committee for consideration and oversight, and the risk will be added to the Corporate Risk Register.

The overall risk framework is now overseen and regularly monitored by the Board. Individual significant risks will continue to be allocated to the appropriate Board committees.

The risk framework, due in part to the impact of COVID-19, was thoroughly reviewed in March 2021. Revisions were made, which were approved by the Board. Since then, more detailed work has been done to make sure the framework provides an effective risk and control environment, utilised by all senior staff, UK Leadership Team and members of the Board and its committees. Work is ongoing to continuously review the framework, and individual risks to ensure they provide adequate information to the Board. This enables trustees to have the proper oversight and reassurance that risks are being effectively managed.

An agreed risk management framework is used by the movement, which enables local Executive Committees to deliver their risk management responsibilities based on guidance from the Charity Commission.

Risk Appetite

The Board reviews the risk appetite of each corporate level risk annually to determine the individual tolerance level, and what happens when thresholds are breached.

While accepting risk in Scouting activities can never be entirely eliminated, given the nature of the activities undertaken, we seek to minimise the potential for serious harm to be caused to young people and members to the greatest extent feasible.

However, The Scout Association has a high appetite for opportunities for membership growth, and would be comfortable taking more risk in this area.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding is the golden thread throughout Scouts. Our number one priority is keeping young people in our care safe from harm.

We believe an open and transparent culture of challenge is how we protect our young people. Our Yellow Card Code of Practice for adults in Scouts is embedded in everything we do. We always make sure everyone knows about this card, including young people and parents. It’s a priority that they’re clear about the expectations and behaviours of our volunteers, and know exactly what to do if the code isn’t being followed.

At Scouts, we have a centralised national safeguarding team. They deal with all safeguarding, welfare and suitability referrals, covering adults and young people. As part of our safeguarding processes, a key aspect of the team’s work is liaising closely with all statutory agencies.

The safeguarding team’s made up of professionals who’ve been involved in safeguarding practice before. This includes social workers, ex-child protection police officers, probation 69 officers, early years practitioners and education professionals.

We’re always striving to improve our team, and recent changes include:

• More investment
• Increasing our management capacity, ensuring there’s good quality supervision
• Management oversight, and a robust quality assurance programme. This includes external scrutiny by an independent company who specialises in safeguarding
• Building on our open culture of transparency and challenge

As part of our safer recruitment processes, we’re still working with the Disclosure and Barring Service, Disclosure Scotland, and AccessNI.

We refresh our safeguarding training and support material to make sure they’re current. Every three years, volunteers need to complete mandatory safeguarding training. This training is validated online, and each volunteer needs a 100% pass rate to get certification. Volunteers in commissioner roles do additional management safeguarding training.

Each quarter, the Board of Trustees receives a safeguarding report. Scouts has a strong Safeguarding Committee, that’s chaired by a Trustee with extensive experience in safeguarding. The committee also has external safeguarding experts.

The Safeguarding Committee is given regular performance data. They make sure it’s used effectively, to improve practice, make appropriate changes to training, and make sure lessons learnt are effectively implemented.

We continue to engage with the wider sector, sharing best practice, and have presented at national conferences on our safeguarding arrangements and governance as examples of best practice. We also work in partnership with government bodies, so we’re always at the forefront of safeguarding practice.

Safety

Along with safeguarding, safety is a golden thread throughout Scouts. Our number one priority is keeping young people in our care safe from harm.

To achieve this, we have a range of measures in place. These include:

• Our Safety Policy: As part of our key policies, our Safety Policy clearly outlines the commitment to safety expected from everyone in Scouts. It helps make sure everyone plays their part in keeping young people safe. The Safety Policy is reviewed each year, and it’s informed by wider sector best practice.
• Safety Committee: Scouts has a Safety Committee, which reports directly to the Board of Trustees. It also reports to people whose responsibility it is to provide leadership, and oversee safety policies, procedures and rules that are provided to our volunteers. It’s chaired by an external appointee, who has significant professional experience of health and safety management, and who’s also a Trustee. The Safety Committee’s made up of different individuals, who all have extensive experience in health and safety across a number of sectors.

Each quarter, the Board of Trustees gets an update on safety matters, including:

• Incident statistics, training and compliance reports at their meeting. Each year, the Board is given a full report of Safety Committee activities, along with a detailed overview of trends and statistics.
• We know it’s important to keep learning from experience, and making sure we have robust responses when incidents arise. All throughout the movement, this approach is embedded in our culture and systems. The Safety Committee has processes and procedures in place to gather data about incidents, and to consider that data carefully to make improvements.

This year, we have increased investment in the Safe Scouting team, appointing a new Head of Safety, HQ Safety Manager and 3 further Safety and Compliance Officers. These appointments mean we can greatly increase our support across the movement, and develop our commitment to safe Scouting. We’ve led and supported a return to safe Scouting, while dealing with ever-changing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We also focus on the delivery of risk assessments. We’ve reviewed the Policy, Organisation and Rules, guidance and supporting templates, and we’ve delivered briefings and training sessions to support members.

Fundraising: our approach

Section 162A of the Charities Act 2011 requires charities to make a statement regarding fundraising activities.

The day-to-day management of all income generation’s delegated to the Executive Leadership Team, which is accountable to the Board of Trustees.

We take the protection of our supporters and donors’ personal data very seriously: we never use personal data in any way that they don’t wish us to. We always provide them with the opportunity to change their minds if they no longer want to receive communications; we never share or sell their data; and we don’t contact anyone, if we know they don’t want us to.

Although we don’t receive widespread fundraising from the general public, we do enter into Commercial Participator Agreements with commercial partners who sponsor a variety of our programmes, and this activity is fundraising for the purpose of section 162A of the Charities Act 2011. We also receive legacies, grant funding and donations, 70 which are presented in our accounts as ‘voluntary income’. We make sure that no one’s ever pressured to leave us a legacy or donate any funds.

The charity, nor any person acting on its behalf, has been subject to any undertaking to be bound by any voluntary scheme for regulating fundraising. We’re a member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising regulated by the Fundraising Regulator, and comply with the standards in the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice, as well as all other relevant legislation codes of practice and guidance. All staff involved in fundraising are made aware of, and the need to comply with, the requirements of relevant fundraising legislation and codes of practice.

We’re not aware of any failure to comply with the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice in relation to our fundraising activities, either by us, our staff, or our Commercial Participators.

We monitor fundraising activities undertaken by our Commercial Participators. All contracts with Commercial Participators contain a provision for monitoring by us. This is usually undertaken by way of regular meetings between the parties and feedback on the progress of any fundraising activity, and an obligation to provide access to additional information and assistance as may be necessary to help us to demonstrate compliance with our duty to monitor. Where Commercial Participators are sponsors, but not undertaking any direct public fundraising, the requirement for access to additional information isn’t always deemed necessary.

We’ve received no complaints on our fundraising activity.

All our Commercial Participator Agreements include an obligation to make sure that they act at all times to protect vulnerable people from any intrusion to their privacy, and don’t make any unreasonable approaches to, or put undue pressure on, any vulnerable people to give money to the charity. This is included even if they’re not undertaking any direct public fundraising