Activity Permits

Scouting Assessors

We'd like to encourage as many people as possible to do the scouting permit for any activities that you're interested in running. They provide a way to give young people a way to get those first experiences in these exciting disciplines. We're trying to collate places where you can find permits to do the following:

The following links will help you find upcoming training dates to obtain permits.

• Nights Away Permit: Email District Nights Away Advisor (note: This is the permit you need to run camps within scouting, there is no cost, but you will need to run a camp with your section, email for more details)

• Ferny Crofts: Offering a variety of courses from First Aid to Raft Building

• Yr Hafod: Hill Walking, Mountain Leader, rock climbing (incl. NGB) and first aid training

• Hampshire Scouts DofE Training: Leader, Supervisor and Assessor Courses

• Have a link to share? Email us

• Want to get more info? Fill in this form (Also at the bottom of the page) and we'll let you know as soon as we have any more information about permits you're interested in.

External Assessors

Qualified individuals external to Scouting who are experienced in carrying out assessments when no County Assessors are available. This is not a Scouting appointment and will generally be used for a one-off assessment. Due to external assessors not being required to do any internal training or validation of their assessment skills, they are required to hold national governing body qualifications that include assessing training. Details of the level of qualification they are required to hold can be found in the external assessor qualification table.

When you use an external assessor you should ensure they see the guidance for external assessors and also the relevant assessment checklist that they will be assessing you against.

National Governing Body (NGB) vs Scouting Permits

For various adventurous activities, there is both a scout permit and national governing body versions of the permit. The NGB permit will cover what is best practices within a given discipline. The scouting permit will allow you to give young people a taste of an activity within a limited scope in a safe manner. If you are personally interested in a given discipline we would highly encourage you to look into doing the NGB version of the permit, but they can often require a lot higher level of personal commitment (for example,  Summer Mountain Leader requires you to complete at least 40 Quality Mountain Days, as well as a week-long training and week-long assessment). However, unlike the scout permits these will generally last your whole life and are respected both nationally (and often internationally). Please contact us if you're keen to do one of these permits.

Here are a few of the governing bodies if you'd like to look into them further:

• Mountain Leader (Summer/Winter/International), Climbing Wall Instructor, Rock Climbing Instructor - Mountain Training

• Canoeing, Kayaking, Stand-up Paddleboarding, White-water rafting - British Canoeing (Awarding Body)

• Powerboating, Narrow Boating, Yachting, Wind-surfing - Royal Yachting Association (RYA)

• Archery - Archery GB

• Mountain Biking - British Cycling OR MIAS

Funding your permit

We are happy to fund your permit, either fully or partially depending on cost, as long as you are an active leader in the Southampton City District and happy to use your permit to benefit the whole district (We don't expect you to run everything for everyone, but we'd like to make sure that those sections that are without permits are able to take part in adventurous activities too). Our hope is that by increasing the number of people that have permits we have across the district, we can decrease the load on everyone, and get even more young people to experience these amazing adventurous activities. Please email us at permits@southamptoncityscouts.org.uk if you want more details!