We have had another week of being focused on providing and testing systems to enable disclosures and Census to take place, here is an overview of where we are at and any new information we have.
Disclosure checks for existing members – progress and new support
For Districts in England and Wales, we are just over half way through sending a tailored email to each District Commissioner providing a report on which members require a new disclosure check. Work continues to provide this information to all remaining Districts and is due to be completed by the end of next week. This information, coupled with being able to use Atlantic Data to process disclosure checks locally, means we are able to ensure all current adult members are kept up to date with disclosure checks.
An updated guide and a video have been created for members, showing step by step how to process disclosure checks within Atlantic Data. This is available on the User Guide and Appointments and DBS page of www.scouts.org.uk/compass.
For Scotland and Northern Ireland, tailored emails showing members that require a new disclosure check will be provided to District Commissioners /Northern Ireland HQ. The normal disclosure application process can be used, sending the paper forms to the Vetting Team at Gilwell Park when completed and the team will work to ensure the rest of your process can continue as before, even while Compass is down.
Disclosure checks for new adult volunteers
The system being developed to allow new adult volunteers to be added to Compass and disclosure checked, if appropriate, has been created and tested this week. The system developed has worked well in testing so we are now preparing to launch this for members to start using from next week. The final touches are just being completed on the guidance of how to complete this process.
Census
Members heavily involved in completing the Census for their area have been directly communicated with to share the instructions for this year. Any youth data uploaded to HQ by 16 February has been pre-populated into the census record for those Groups/Districts etc who had provided it. If youth data is not already on your census submission this will need to be added yourselves. Unfortunately it was not possible to pre-populate the adult data. Thank you to those members and teams working to input their figures and check their census submissions in time for the final approval deadline on 23 March.
More information on census can be found on the below links:
Additional guidance for those in Scotland
Data protection information related to Compass
Since the launch of Compass we have been fielding many enquiries around data protection, both in terms of how Compass can help us all comply with data protection guidelines and the related requirements for putting information onto Compass. As well as answering queries directly the team have created an FAQ document of some of the most common questions that came up. While we appreciate Compass is not live at the moment we wanted to make this information available now as it may help answer queries many other members had in this area. This is now available in the About section on www.scouts.org.uk/compass for those who are interested to learn more.
I hope this update is useful. Back in touch next week with more on the latest developments.