Safeguarding Reports and Making Complaints

Safeguarding Young People and Vulnerable Adults

The Scout Association and Durham Scout County take the safety and safeguarding of our youth members and vulnerable adults very seriously and comply with all Charity Commission requirements in this area. We have established procedures to safeguard the welfare and safety of our youth members (Durham Scouts follows the national safeguarding policy, rules and guidelines of the Scout Association.)

Durham Scouts has an appointed Safeguarding Adviser responsible for providing specialist safeguarding and welfare guidance and support. Volunteer Line Managers (Lead Volunteers) have the responsibility to ensure that the national safeguarding policy, rules and guidelines of the Scout Association are followed locally

All of our volunteers undertake mandatory safeguarding training every three years, and must comply with our national safeguarding policy, rules and guidance (copies available on request).

Any safeguarding enquiries are led by the Scout Association’s professional Safeguarding Team, working in conjunction with local statutory agencies, supported by local Situation Managers (Lead Volunteers).

Report a Safeguarding Concern

Find out how to report a safeguarding concern.

Report a concern

If You have a Safeguarding Concern

All safeguarding concerns must be reported to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team as soon as possible and always within 24 hours. To make a report, you can:

You can also report anonymously using: 

The Scouts Complaint Policy and Dealing with Complaints

In line with our Scout Values, we have a responsibility to deal fairly, constructively and consistently with concerns from members and non-members, including parents and carers on behalf of themselves or their youngsters. 

Durham Scouts adhere to these values and follow the procedures that the Scout association have laid out. 

Many complainants don’t want to enter a formal complaints procedure, they just want their questions answered and their concerns dealt with. The first step should always be to communicate with the persons concerned, to listen and to try to seek an informal resolution of the issues. Face to face is the best way forward at this stage, rather than using email or texts. 

When this is not possible then it is important that the formal policy on dealing with complaints is followed. 

More detailed information and appropriate templates including the complaint template can be found here and POR chapter 15. 

Formal complaints that are received are passed to the most appropriate and most local Lead Volunteer or Team Leader for resolution. If there is a conflict of interest then the complaint will be passed to a similar appropriate Leader. 

There is also a separate whistleblowing process for serious concerns. 

 In summary: 

  • We only consider complaints raised within three months of any issue occurring 
  • We only address first party complaints (i.e. those that affect you directly, or your youngster, but not those raised on behalf of any third party) 
  • We do not consider malicious or vexatious complaints, or those which are substantively the same as previous complaints 
  • We do not usually investigate anonymous complaints (although anonymous safeguarding concerns will be investigated) 
  • There is no process of ‘escalation’ of a complaint. The complainant’s recourse is solely a single appeal once the original complaint has been investigated and the outcome known as per the policy. An appeal must be made within14 days of the complainant being notified of the outcome of the original complaint. 

If you’re not sure who to address your complaint to, please e-mail [email protected] and we’ll let you know where to address your complaint.