Scouts Partnership with OSM
On Wednesday 17th June there was a webinar about the new pilot partnership between The Scouts and Online Scout Manager. All the information on the webinar is available here: https://www.scouts.org.uk/digital-transformation/online-scout-manager/
These are the key points:
- This is optional. Your Group Executive (as data controllers for your Group) must make and minute the decision to opt in to this partnership.
- The partnership would give The Scouts access to two types of information for very clearly specified purposes:
- As a last resort, if the Safeguarding team needs to access contact information for a young person in order to get them protected quickly, and they can’t access that information any other way, then they can access an individual’s record. This would be only a very small number of specified individuals at UKHQ and would be with a local commissioner’s permission. You would see a note on OSM to let you know this had been accessed.
- Certain people at UKHQ would have access to anonymised aggregate/trending data and graphs to allow them to see things like how long members stay in Scouting. This will help them to apply for funding nationally, and also to provide better and fine-tuned support, resources and guidance. We are in a strange situation currently where a National organisation doesn’t know that much about their membership.
- It would be of benefit to the organisation for as many Groups as possible to opt-in. This is not compulsory as it is recognised that there are still about 15% of Groups not using OSM.
- Several people asked whether this would mean that Scouts would start paying for OSM. This is not the case at this time, you still have the same business agreement between your Group and OSM. Also, they are not looking at the moment at automating the census from OSM. However, if this partnership works well and there is increased participation by Groups, this is something they may look at in the future. To the question, “Will OSM replace Compass?” the answer was that this needs to be built on trust, which they are building through this arrangement; there needs to be a compelling case for change; and it needs to be the right time. We aren’t there yet.
- This information would not be accessed by Districts or Counties. Contact information for individuals (apart from the rare Safeguarding instances mentioned above) would not be accessed and therefore this data would not be used for marketing purposes.
- In terms of GDPR – The Scouts and The Scout Groups are both data controllers and OSM is a data processor. This agreement is a data sharing arrangement. You do not have to seek permission from parents as there is a lawful basis for this agreement. The Group Exec reads the information pack and makes the decision – accountability. The parents are informed by an update of the Privacy Statement – transparency.
What to do next
As a County, we think that The Scout Association should have access to information about their members. We are all part of the same organisation. We strongly recommend opting into this data-sharing partnership.
1) Give your Group Executive the “OSM Partnership Local Guidance Detailed Doc” which can be downloaded from the web-page link above. Ask them to read it. They are the data
controller for your Group and it’s up to them to make this decision about whether to participate.
2) At your next Group Executive meeting discuss this. Ask them to approve the data sharing agreement and minute this. The Scouts are hoping that most groups will have opted in by the end of the Summer.
3) Update your group Privacy Statement and share this with the parents in your Group. There is an editable template on the linked website.
4) On your normal page on OSM, click on “Settings” (bottom left); then “Section Settings” then go to “The Scouts Pilot Partnership”. Opt in there.
