Durham Scout County Council Annual Report and Accounts 2017 - 2018 13 Contents Contents Welcome from the County Chair..................................................................................................................... 3 Annual Report 2017-18 .................................................................................................................................... 4 Trustees’ Annual Report ................................................................................................................................. 11 Report of the Independent Auditors to the Trustees of Durham Scout County Council ............ 19 2018 - 19: The Start of a New Chapter ..................................................................................................... 22 Statements of Financial Activities ................................................................................................................ 27 Balance Sheet..................................................................................................................................................... 28 Notes to the Financial Statements ............................................................................................................... 29 2 Annual Report Welcome from the County Our finances are well managed, our risks are identified, understood and mitigated to an Chair acceptable position, and we operate in compliance with both Scout Association It gives me great pleasure to present our requirements and those of the Charity Trustee’s Annual Report and Accounts for the Commission. year ending 31st March 2018. This year we have also made ourselves ready The pages that follow provide a detailed for the introduction of GDPR where, as is so picture of what we have achieved over the last often the case, we were able to draw on the twelve months, our areas of strength and experience and expertise of members of the those areas where we have identified that we County to put our own systems in place and to want to achieve more, and we have again support districts and Groups with their own included a summary of what comes next. compliance. I’m sure you will be delighted that once again There is an incredible amount of work that we have seen our membership grow, goes into making all this happen, and I offer evidencing that we are getting many things my grateful thanks to my fellow Trustees, the right in delivering a progressive programme County Team, the ever expanding SASUs and for our young people, and supporting our adult everyone that supports Scouting in Durham volunteers – and we intend to take this to new County. levels over the next few years in line with the recently launched Skills for Life 2018-2023 national strategy. Graham Elder County Chair 3 Annual Report numbers, other districts saw a decline in these Annual Report 2017-18 three sections. More positively, last years’ reduction in To allow an easier comparison of where we are, or explorer scout numbers was more than are not, meeting our stated objectives, the order in reversed with a 10% growth in the 14-17- which this year’s annual report is presented reflects the order of “2017-18 – A Year of Opportunity” in year-old section, thanks to the hard work of last year’s annual report. our Explorer Scout leaders. This resulted in a small growth in 6-17-year- Development and Growth old youth numbers (5,978 in 2017 versus 6,012 in 2018 – an increase of 0.6%) As we looked ahead to 2017-18 this time last year we said, “…although Durham Scout The figures above exclude the 18-25-year-old County continues to be a ‘growth county’, Scout Network provision which also saw there are still challenges which need to be numbers grow from 108 to 148 active overcome to be able to meet the on-going members, which shows that our long-term demand for scouting in Gateshead, South plan to support the growth of the Scout Tyneside, Sunderland, Darlington and County Network in districts is working. Durham”. Our official waiting list numbers show a small In last year’s annual report we also said, “We reduction in the number of young people are confident that 2017-18 will see further wanting to join scouting in Durham Scout growth in the scout county and will see a County but unable to find a place. We still reduction in our waiting lists”. While we are have more than 500 young people wanting to proud that has proven to be true, the rate of join scouting in Durham and there is almost growth has not been as spectacular as in certainly additional demand in some parts of previous years. the scout county where there is additional demand not reflected in our waiting list Numbers of beaver scouts, cub scouts and figures. scouts were relatively flat. Although some districts recorded a 17% growth in youth YOUTH NUMBERS: 2010 - 2018 Beaver Scouts Cub Scouts Scouts Explorer Scouts 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 4 Annual Report While this means that Durham is still a At the end of 2017-18 appointment ‘growth county’ the slowdown in growth does processes were also underway for: reflect some of the challenges forecast in last • A new Assistant County Commissioner years’ annual report. (Scout Active Support) In the last year we have appointed new • A second Assistant County District Commissioners in seven of our Commissioner (Young Leaders), to share fourteen districts, meaning that new district the role with the current ACC(YL) development plans are being drawn up, which • A new District Commissioner for will form the basis of an updated county Houghton-le-Spring district. development plan in 2018. Our county Appointments Advisory These are intended to help address some of Committee (AAC) continue to do an excellent the barriers to growth which have appeared job with supporting the appointments process as we have filled available capacity over the not only with respect to members of the last few years and should lay the foundations county team, but also for County Training for additional growth and development in the Advisors, Assessors etc. next five years. Programme Support 2017-18 has not seen as much success in providing programme support to our section leaders as hoped. While practical skills training went ahead in the summer of 2017 as planned, the spring 2018 session unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the snow of late February. There appeared to be insufficient interest to run the planned programme exchange workshops. Also, with the exception of the explorer scout and scout network sections, attendance at county programme support New Appointments meetings has been lower than hoped, but it is clear that there is still an appetite for 2017-18 saw more new appointments being programme support from our section leaders. made as planned. These were: Feedback from our section leaders suggests • A Deputy County Commissioner that attendance at face-to-face meetings is • A County Training Manager increasingly difficult due to the distance • A County Secretary required to travel across the county. Additional • Two new Assistant County feedback suggests that as much of this Commissioners (Diversity and Inclusion) support as possible should be delivered locally • District Commissioners for Bishop i.e. within scout districts. Auckland, Derwentside, Durham and City, The county is therefore looking to support Peterlee and Seaham districts districts to ensure that a full team of effective • Additional members of the Finance Management Board 5 Annual Report sectional commissioners are in place in every Large scale events and competitions play an district. important part in developing our youth members, introducing them to new Based on this feedback and in consultation experiences, teaching them new skills and with our volunteer leaders, towards the end of helping them to expand their friendship 2017-18 we started to move towards a model groups as part of the world’s most successful of less frequent face-to-face meetings youth movement. supported by the greater use of social media, the county website and web conferences using the county’s new Office365 IT infrastructure. It is hoped that this will help to provide the support necessary to ensure that all sections continue to deliver high quality programmes. Youth Shaped Scouting Good progress continues to be made with youth shaped scouting in the scout county, which sees young people shaping their scouting experiences in partnership with adults. The county youth team has been restructured with the appointment of a Deputy Youth Commissioner and Assistant Deputy Youth Commissioners to provide greater youth input to more operational areas such as media, programme, governance etc. Further progress has been made with the appointment of District Youth Commissioners and there is an increasing level of youth input at county events and competitions. While there is always further work to do, the county youth team have made excellent progress since their formation in January 2017 and Durham Scout County now compares very well as a youth shaped county. 2017-18 saw a further increase in the number Events, Activities and and improvement in the quality of our county Competitions events. These continue to be the most highly rated aspects of the scout county’s work in our As expected, 2017-18 saw our Events and annual membership satisfaction survey. Adventurous Activity Scout Active Support Unit members (who numbered more that 170 As planned, additional Event Managers were at the end of 2017-18) busier than ever. recruited to help assure