Dear Member,
The National Youth Agency have released updated guidance for the upcoming lifting of some restrictions for youth organisations. The most important part of the updated guidance is when we move back to AMBER on 29th March, they will be the lifting the 15 young people maximum restriction.
Initially we communicated that Sections would be restricted to 15 young people meeting alongside 5 adult volunteers. We’re now pleased to say that the restriction on outdoor group sizes for youth organisations has been lifted, meaning there will be no restrictions on Section sizes able to meet outdoors. Despite there being no limit on the numbers of people, you should not have more adults attending than are needed to run a great programme while ensuring social distancing and hygiene standards are met. This will apply to all Sections including Scout Network, however for activities with no youth members present you will have to follow government guidelines for adults.
Whilst we hope that this is positive news which will help Sections to run their weekly meetings, we are still encouraging them to plan these in a way that minimises the risk of infection – these changes should also be reflected in AMBER risk assessments. Sections should be confident that you can still maintain social distancing measures and we’d encourage them to not exceed their numbers for a normal indoor section meeting.
If a Section is too small to be viable, without the necessary young people or volunteers, then these sections are able to join one other section in the Group. Larger Group, District and County events will remain prohibited, but we’re still hopeful they will return in the summer.
Further details on the AMBER readiness level can be found on The Scouts website and the County Coronavirus Information Hub.
You can view full guidance on ‘Getting everyone back together safely’ by clicking here.
Kind Regards,
Andy Farrell
County Commissioner
