We’re growing: and what does that mean for you?
At Scouts, we want to see more young people with skills for life, supported by amazing volunteers that deliver an inspiring programme. We want to grow, be more inclusive, be shaped by young people and make a bigger impact in our communities.
So, how have we been getting on with that?
Every year, we carry out a census. This is our nationwide membership survey to help us to better understand the young people and adults in our membership. The census results help us see how we’re getting on with achieving our vision and how, moving forward, we can give the right support to our volunteers and young people. It helps to tell us how we can improve and where we should focus our attention.
Our key headlines for growth over the last year
Young people:
- Brilliantly, 6,100 more Squirrels have joined us since last year
- We saw just over 2% growth in all young people too
Adult Volunteers:
- We’re excited to now have 83,792 adult volunteers working directly with young people, so Section Leaders, Assistant Section Leaders and Section Assistants.
- This has grown by over 4% since 2023
Young Leaders:
- We now welcomed 19,775 Young Leaders
- This makes us ahead of our target of 19,500 by 2025
Volunteers from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds:
- We’ve welcomed and increased the number of volunteers from these backgrounds from 2.7% in 2023 to 3.8% in 2024
- This is encouraging, as we’re aiming to increase the number of volunteers we have from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities by 5%
Waiting lists:
- Our waiting list continues to grow, now by over 7,000
- We’ve over 107,000 young people waiting for places across our sections, showing the real need for continual welcome and engagement of new volunteers
Top awards:
- We’re delighted to have given out over 78,000 top awards to our young people in 2024
- This is almost 14,000 more compared to previous year.
Our plan for the year ahead
It’s incredible to see some of our strong areas of growth, especially with Squirrels, Young Leaders and the number in volunteers who are from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
But, although we’ve broadly seen growth at Scouts, it’s not at the pace we were expecting to build back from the Covid-19 pandemic.
We’ve still 107,000 young people on our waiting lists.
This year, we know we need to continue the push for growth to make sure young people across the UK can get the skills they need for life.
Our County/Area/Region and District teams have been developing local growth plans for each area.
We’ll specifically be focusing our support at those areas locally where there is little to no Scouts. We’ll also be looking at how we can reduce waiting lists. It might be that you can reduce local waiting lists by increasing the size of your section, or opening new sections.
If your Group or District doesn’t have Squirrels yet, then this is worth considering, as there can be benefits to the whole Group by introducing new four and five year olds, alongside their their parents/carers, to Scouts.
Resources you can use today
We recognise the time and effort put in by all volunteers to bring Scouting to even more young people across the UK, and we really do appreciate it. It makes a huge difference to the lives of young people in our society.
If you’re thinking about how you could grow even more (especially in new areas), find some of our helpful online resources below.