Safeguarding

At Scouts, it’s our number one priority to keep young people in our care safe from harm. Along with safety, safeguarding is the golden thread throughout our movement and we take it very seriously. We believe an open and transparent culture of challenge is how we protect our young people.

We embed our Yellow Card Code of Practice for adults in Scouts in everything we do. We endeavour, through our training and the work of safeguarding advisors locally, to ensure everyone knows about the Yellow Card, including young people and their parents and carers. 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. The Yellow Card places a duty on all adults in Scouts to report any allegations, suspicions, and concerns immediately and challenge inappropriate attitudes or behaviours.

Over the past year, we’ve worked with the NSPCC to co-produce a child-focused poster to complement our Yellow Card, so young people can learn what to report and how. We’re making this available from September 2023 to display in the meeting places of our 7,000 Scout groups. We’ll also look at creating a version of the poster for our digital channels, so young people can find the information online any time they need.

We have a centralised UK Safeguarding Team, made up of safeguarding professionals from backgrounds in social work, police, education, early years, probation, and more. 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 working closely with all statutory agencies.

We’re always striving to improve our team through clear management oversight and quality assurance. We have a robust quality assurance programme, including external scrutiny by an independent company that specialises in safeguarding and continue to develop practice to provide assurance of local practice and compliance with rules.

As part of our safer recruitment processes, we’re still working with the Disclosure and Barring Service, Disclosure Scotland, and AccessNI. We also have individual Country arrangements in relation to safer recruitment for British Scouting overseas.

Safeguarding training

We refresh our safeguarding training and support material to make sure they’re current. We have regular, independent reviews of our training and processes. This year we have commissioned the NSPCC to provide this and moving forward, we’ll commission an independent review every two years.

Every three years, it’s mandatory for every volunteer, no matter how long they’ve volunteered for, to complete safeguarding training. Their training is validated online, and each volunteer needs a 100% pass rate to keep volunteering with us. There’s extra management safeguarding training for volunteers in Commissioner roles. Staff are also required to complete the same training and adhere to the Code of Practice. In addition, our safeguarding team staff undertake external, advanced training and professional development.

We take our safeguarding training very seriously, so we have systems in place to deal with any non-compliance. This includes suspending or excluding volunteers if they haven’t completed or refreshed their training.

Safeguarding information

We share safeguarding information on the scouts.org.uk homepage and explain how to report concerns. We also proactively share this beyond our own website, for example, through our Yellow Card.

We’ve recently added a dedicated page to our website inviting survivors of non-recent child abuse to report it. On this webpage, we’ve made it clearer what support is available, as well as highlight the ability to report anonymously to NSPCC’s whistleblowing line.

Safeguarding procedures

We’re always looking to improve our safeguarding procedures and learn from survivors’ experiences. Through internal and external reviews, we actively look at change we need to make in our processes and practice. We accept that, even with good practices, robust policies, strong leadership and clear governance, things can still go wrong.

We’re a learning organisation and we always seek to act on any recommendations from learning reviews of cases. We speak to parents, volunteers, and survivors, as well as carry out quality assurance and external reviews to proactively invite challenge, and internal compliance checks in respect of recruitment, training, and reporting.

Over the last few years, we’ve significantly increased the size of our safeguarding staff team to make sure we robustly respond to any safeguarding concerns.

Safeguarding governance

To govern our safeguarding, we have a range of measures in place. These include:

Our Yellow Card Code of Practice: commended as good practice by external agencies including the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse as part of Effective Leadership of Child Protection (IICSA).

Our Safeguarding Policy: clearly outlining the commitment to safeguarding we expect from everyone in Scouts. It helps make sure everyone plays their part in keeping young people safe. Each year, the policy is reviewed and informed by wider sector best practice.

Safeguarding Committee: Our Safeguarding Committee reports directly to the Board of Trustees. It’s chaired by an external appointee – a Trustee with significant professional safeguarding experience. The Safeguarding Committee includes independent members, who all have lots of experience in safeguarding across various sectors. The Committee also links to those responsible for providing leadership, and oversees the policies, procedures, and rules given to our volunteers.

Each quarter, safeguarding is always considered and scrutinised by the Board of Trustees and discussed with additional verbal updates from the Chair of the Safeguarding Committee. We update the Board of Trustees on safeguarding matters, including incident data, training, and compliance reports at their meetings.

Each year, the Board gets a full report on Safeguarding Committee activities. They also review trends and issues facing young people in society, and engage in a dedicated safeguarding development session.

We know it’s important to learn from experience and respond appropriately to incidents. We embed this approach throughout the movement in our culture and systems. Our Safeguarding Committee follows procedures to gather data about incidents, and for considering the data carefully to make improvements. To keep up-to-date, we do a monthly audit of our current practices.

We actively engage with the wider sector, sharing best practice. We also work with government bodies, so we’re at the forefront of safeguarding practice.

Safeguarding Action Plan

We’re continually improving what we’re doing to keep young people safe. We’re learning from external experts and what we hear from survivors, and we’ve published an action plan on our website. From June 2023, these are some of the actions we’re taking.

We’ve established a programme of work for continual improvement in Safe Scouting. The project will deliver:

• Clarity – we will ensure both local Scouts and HQ have clarity on what is most important and what is expected, including roles and accountability. Trends and insights allow more informed creation of training, resources and policy to deal with problem topics/locations and highlight best practice.
• Capability – we will give local Scouts and HQ the tools and resources to effectively carry out safe Scouting activities. HQ and local Scouts can evidence local compliance with policy and practice.
• Confidence – local Scouting and HQ know that the charities are being run in a safe and compliant manner.

We are updating our Yellow Card code of behaviour.

September: We'll distribute posters we’ve designed with NSPCC Childline, so young people know how to report any of their concerns. These can be displayed in our 7,000 Scout groups’ meeting places.

November: We're rolling out updated training following this year’s NSPCC recommendations.

We’re still contributing to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) Changemakers coalition, chaired by the NSPCC, to make sure we deliver the IICSA recommendations. As part of this, we’re working with partners to make sure survivors’ experiences inform policy and practice across youth organisations. This includes engaging with charities who specialise in working with survivors of abuse.