Scouts helps young people step up, speak up and dream big.
We’re the UK’s largest youth movement, supporting over 450,000 young people aged 4-25 to gain skills for life.
Everyone’s welcome here: all genders, faiths (including no faith) and backgrounds, and we’re proud to be part of a global family of 57 million Scouts.
For nearly 120 years, Scouts has created opportunities for young people to have fun, embark on new adventures (especially in the outdoors) forge new friendships, and support their communities. They do this by taking part in an exciting programme with opportunities for everything from coding to kayaking, emergency aid and international travel. We help them believe in themselves and find their place in the world. We help them find their future.
Our formula is simple: to offer affordable activities, usually weekly, for young people in safe, inclusive local spaces. We prioritise opening new groups in disadvantaged areas where we know we can make the most difference to young people. Over the past decade we’ve open more than 1,200 new groups in the 30% most deprived part of the UK, including communities new to Scouts.
Scouts is highly trusted. In a 2024 survey of 2,000 GB adults, conducted by YouGov, 86% of all adults, and 93% of parents, say they trust Scouts. Everything we do is guided by our values of integrity, respect, care, belief and cooperation.
Open to all
We’re committed equity, diversity and inclusion, and know we can always do more to better reflect the communities we serve. We are actively working to achieve this aim.
Powered by volunteers
Scouts is made possible by a team of 150,000 adult volunteers. Many of these deliver activities directly to young people; others give support in equally vital roles, from volunteer managers to trustees and fundraisers. Our 800,000+ parents and carers are part of Scouting too, with many volunteering as helpers and behind the scenes.
Where we are today
Now is a time of significant change and renewal for Scouts.
This year we’ve welcomed a new Patron: HM King Charles III. A new Chief Scout, the adventurer and broadcaster, Dwayne Fields. And most recently, a new CEO Aidan Jones OBE, a highly experienced corporate leader and respected figure in the global Scouts community.
They join our talented Board, our well-established volunteer UK Leadership Team, led by UK Chief Volunteer Carl Hankinson DL, and our staff Executive Leadership Team to shape Scouts. Together we are supporting the delivery of our 2018-2025 Skills for Life strategy.
Demand for Scouts is at a record high, with 107,000 young people on our waiting lists.
Scouts’ membership has steadily grown since the pandemic, when our groups had to close their doors to stay safe. Scouts continued at home, and on Zoom, making the most of the great indoors.
Much of this resurgence is driven by the growth of Squirrel Scouts for 4-6 year-olds which we launched across the UK in 2021 to support the early years children most impacted by lockdowns. Through games, outdoor play and storytelling, we help these young people get the best possible start in life. We now have over 15,000 Squirrel Scouts, across 2,000 Dreys, with a quarter of these in areas of deprivation.
Volunteers are key to our success. That’s why we’re so pleased to be in the delivery stage of our biggest ever initiatives: the transformation of our Volunteer Experience. The changes include new digital tools to manage membership and learning, a new volunteering culture, more welcoming language and a teamed-based volunteering approach. All this will make volunteering at Scouts easier, more welcoming and more rewarding.
Our recent successes
- 4% growth in numbers of frontline volunteers, and 8,700 more young people joining this year.
- Nearly a third of our total UK movement are female.
- The launch of our partnership with Omaze – The Million Pound House draw, which will bring a guaranteed million pounds to Scouts, to create more places for more young people.
- Winning the bid to host the 44th World Scout Conference in London in 2027, bringing volunteers from across the world to help shape the future of the worldwide movement.
- Award winning fundraising, communications, volunteer and digital teams.
- Charity Of the Year (Charity Times Awards 2022)
- Volunteer Team of the Year (Third Sector Awards 2023)
- Corporate National Partnership Champion (Charity Times Awards 2024)
- Most Innovative Use of Data Analysis to Drive Insight (Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Insight in Fundraising Awards 2024).
- Best Community Involvement during a CSR Programme (Corporate Engagement Awards 2024)
- Fundraising Team of the Year (Charity Times Awards 2024 – Highly Commended)
- Charity Collaboration of the Year for The Big Help Out (Charity Times Awards 2023)
Continual learning and improvement
We’re committed to keeping our young people safe.
Part of that means taking tough decisions. In summer 2023, concerns about young people’s safety meant we withdrew our UK Contingent from site of the 25th World Scout Jamboree in Korea. While this came at significant cost, safety came first, and we made sure every young person had a worthwhile Jamboree experience in Seoul. Conversations with the organisers are ongoing, and a full review was conducted to make sure all learnings were captured.
We continue to learn lessons from the inquest into the death of an Explorer Scout at the Great Orme, Wales in 2018. We are implementing a programme of change, responding to our commitments in our response to the Prevention of Future Deaths Notice. We share this progress and our learnings publicly on our website.
We are also mindful to try to better support the small number of our members who have had adverse experiences in Scouts and are committed to learn from these.
Our Safety Committee, a sub-Committee of the Board, continues to attract leading safety experts from outside the movement, to enhance our work on keeping people young people and adult volunteers safe.
Looking ahead
Work is advancing to develop our next strategy which will run from 2026 to 2035, and we are fully engaged in thinking and planning for the future.
We’ve consulted widely with our movement, including thousands of young people and volunteers. The next key moment in January 2025 will be ‘Summit25, our national conference that will bring together over 600 volunteers and young adults to reflect, refocus and renew. Along with external input, the outcomes will help shape the final strategy, with implementation commencing in early 2026.
Alongside this, we are reviewing our governance structures and functions, planning new adventures like a contingent of 18–25-year-olds heading to the World Scout Moot in Portugal in summer 2025, and refreshing our youth programme.
Scouts is a movement, which means we’re always ready to change with the times, while staying true to our values and core aim of supporting young people, inspiring a new generation with skills for life. Our new chair will have a key role in helping us to realise our ambitions for the future, for example in terms of strategy implementation, improving our governance, engaging more with the communities where we operate or in digital transformation.
Our strategic plan 2018-25: Skills for Life
This is our current strategic plan, which will conclude in 2025. The final programmes of work are being delivered and the review phase for the strategy has begun. As our new Chair, you will play a key role in finalising and adopting our next long-term strategy to take us to 2035.
