Change 3: Simplifying our roles and structures

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We are moving...

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   Our volunteering roles need to be...
                                                 clear, manageable, and flexible!

We know that asking people to become leaders (or other specific roles) doesn’t suit everyone. People need to be able to volunteer in whichever way they can and want to do, focusing on the areas they have skills or interest in – and without having to take on the world.  

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A teams-based approach

Teams thrive when they share a purpose, share tasks, and support each other to make the most of their different skills, experiences and available time. So, going forwards, the way we volunteer will be structured around these key principles:

• everyone will volunteer as part of a flexible team structure
• each team will have a clear purpose, team description and set of team tasks
• We will describe our teams and roles in plain English to ensure they are easily understood by everyone

We want to make it easier for a more diverse range of people to contribute to Scouts in a way that reflects their skills, interests, and availability.

Changing the focus from role to team tasks is one way we can make flexible volunteering normal, and available to everyone.

We know that some section teams already approach volunteering in this way and it really works for them – we’re looking at sharing this effective working more widely. Some teams might start off with only one or two people. But by being flexible about how we ask people to volunteer, we’ll make it easier for new people to join in.

Instead of role descriptions, each team now has a team description. There are two types of tasks listed here:

1. Tasks for the whole team – All team members take part in these tasks and must have, or develop, the skills associated with these tasks
2. Allocated tasks – The team leader ensures that one or more team members has the responsibility and skills for these tasks

Beyond that, it’s down to the team to decide how they organise themselves, based on their skills, interests, and availability.

We’ll do similar for all levels of scouting. We want to make it normal for responsibilities to be shared across teams. This means that we’ll be removing our current role descriptions, and replacing them with new team descriptions. The team description describes the set of tasks that the team is together responsible for, but it’s down to the team to work out how they allocate these tasks amongst themselves.

A summary of our new approach

This 5-minute video explains why we're changing how we volunteer together, what the team-based approach is, and what this means for volunteers...

Our new volunteering principles...

• We volunteer flexibly as part of a team with a shared purpose.
• Our teams and titles are easier to understand and more appealing to new volunteers.
• Teams agree how to share tasks between them and this can change over time.
   

Who is affected...

• All volunteers will move into updated teams. For some, volunteering in a team may be a big change and for others, it may be closer to what they’re doing already. 

• For most volunteers, their role title will also change.  

• For some volunteers in District and County teams, there may be a bigger change in what their role does, due to other changes that are coming too, such as those who are involved in training and appointments and welcome. 

Watch our zoom briefing...

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Three parts of the cultural changes will be launched prior to the digital tools...

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What will stay the same 

Our structures will still be arranged in Sections, Groups, Districts and Counties, as well as broadly the tasks that happen at each level. For example, Section Teams will still deliver programmes to young people.  

Even if our structures look different, you should still be able to volunteer in the area that is of most interesting to you, such as working with young people, delivering excellent governance or giving support to other volunteers. 

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