Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people
Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people
Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more
Whistleblowing is about feeling confident enough to tell someone independent and trustworthy about suspected wrongdoing, malpractice or dangers.
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Whistleblowing is about raising genuine concerns in the public interest, for the greater good of our people, organisation and even wider society.
Importantly, you should feel you’re able to do this without fear of punishment or legal consequences.
Remember, the issues you report should only be things that aren’t covered by our other policies or procedures.
It’s about reporting things we feel are very wrong to prevent very serious situations getting any worse. By reporting these very serious things, action can be taken to prevent further harm.
It means changes can be made that can benefit and protect everyone.
Every volunteer has the right to do this. We promise to protect you if you choose to come forward.
You’ll be treated fairly, with dignity and respect.
We’re all in Scouts to help young people gain skills for life. We’re lucky to have a team of committed volunteers that make that possible.
While there are occasionally disagreements, and things that go wrong, our values, policies and line managers are there to guide us along the way and help us resolve these.
However there are occasions when we feel there is something deeply wrong and don’t know where to turn to report it.
This could be when we suspect criminal activity, a danger to health and safety or financial mismanagement for example.
A whistleblower can be a volunteer in Scouting who raises a genuine concern about suspected wrongdoing, malpractice or dangers in the public interest.
Whistleblowing is the disclosure of information which relates to suspected wrongdoing, malpractice or dangers which falls outside the scope of other policies and procedures.
You may have serious concerns and strongly believe:
You might feel that you can’t speak to line managers or volunteers because they’re involved in some way, or because you’re fearful about what might happen if you do raise it as a concern. Will I lose my role? Will I face legal consequences?
When we hear from you, we’ll quickly assess your report. We’ll then pass it to the relevant team to respond.
Please note that we might decide, at this stage, that your report falls within the scope one of our other policies such as safeguarding. In this case, it will dealt with in the normal way and not treated as whistleblowing.
It’s not about:
It’s very specifically about raising a concern in the public interest about something that could harm people, or Scouts locally or nationally.
We’ve updated the policy to:
We’ve also updated the policy because we realised that many of the things being reported were complaints or issues that could be resolved by following our policies and procedures, or working with line managers.
Remember, our Safeguarding, Complaints, and Volunteer Anti-bullying and Harassment policies will often help resolve issues.
Within five working days:
Usually within 10 working days, we’ll provide you with the following information:
If the team decides the matter won’t be investigated, and you’re not satisfied with this, you can request the decision is reviewed.
You’ll need to make a request for a review in writing within 10 days of being notified of the outcome of the initial assessment.
Equally, if the matter has been investigated and you are not happy with the outcome you can request a review. You’ll need to make a request for a review in writing within 10 days of being notified of the outcome.
The Deputy UK Chief Commissioner and the Scouts Governance Team will conduct this review and confirm the outcome. Any decision is final.
If you are looking to submit a whistleblowing disclosure, please follow The Scouts Volunteer Whistleblowing Policy.