2. Supporting those applying for permits and facilitating opportunities for them

While the permit scheme is an enabling device, designed to allow leaders within Scouting to lead adventurous activities without the need for external professional level qualifications, to some leaders without an understanding of the scheme it can seem like a barrier to the provision of activities. It is therefore important that you ensure leaders in your County are aware of the opportunities it can provide and the way it can be personalised to the level they wish to lead at. This could be through; providing contact details for leaders to get advice and information, attending leaders meetings to explain the scheme and its benefits, ensuring leaders on module 17 training are receiving correct information and having the benefits of the scheme explained, providing information stands at County and District events, or any other method that you find works for you locally.

As mentioned in ‘Supporting County Assessors’ the most effective style of assessment is assessment courses which need to be promoted widely throughout your County and beyond. Along with assessment courses there will also be times when applicants will need to find an individual Assessor. This may be for an activity that you have no assessment courses running, for a very specialist restriction on a permit that isn’t easily assessed on a course, or due to timescales and availability they are not able to attend any of the assessment courses running. In this situation there are three ways of finding an Assessor, and it is likely that applicants will appreciate your help and contacts in this search. These are:

• Use the Assessor Search Function on Compass. Read the Compass user guide.
• Use an Assessor from another County. This could be an assessment course that the MAPS from that County has promoted to you or has been advertised on the website, or it could be an individual Assessor that you have found through contact with other MAPS.
• Use an external Assessor. This is someone who has nothing to do with Scouting but has the qualification required for an external Assessor. They could be a technical adviser that you use in the County to provide training and assessment, a self-employed instructor working within their activity, or an instructor working at an activity centre or provider. They will need to be given a copy of the relevant assessment checklist and ensure they are aware of what it is they are assessing and what they're signing off.

While many leaders will already have the skills needed to get a permit, there will be others who will be looking for training and to gain new skills to bring them up to this level. Providing, finding and promoting these opportunities is important in ensuring leaders have the skills to be able to lead these activities for young people in Scouting.

Often this will be through County Active Support units specialising in a specific activity, or the County Activity Team, so these opportunities will just need promoting widely within the County. Other options are; to bring in external technical advisers to run specialist training courses, to find courses being run by Scout campsites and activity centres, or to promote external activity courses such as NGB training courses.

There is funding available to potential permit holders to help them attend permit assessments.

And finally, it’s important that all permit holders are aware of when their permit expires. Once a permit has expired that leader will not be able to lead the activity any more until they have gained a new one, so they should be aware of the expiry date so that they can arrange to see an Assessor to be assessed for a new one before this happens. Reports of all permits, including expiry dates, can be pulled off Compass, so a system of regularly doing this and informing permit holders whose expiry date is imminent can be set up. This may be something that you need to check Districts are doing, or it may be the County decides to look after themselves.