Managing your policies

Open Policies in the left menu and select New policy. Give it a title, pick a category such as Safeguarding or Data protection, and choose how often it should be reviewed. The policy starts as a private draft, so nobody else can see it yet.

Open the policy and write the text under Text. Use the Heading and Subheading buttons for section titles, and the buttons for bold, bullet and numbered lists, and links. Select Save draft as often as you like. When the text is right, select Approve version 1, add a note if you want one, and confirm. Approving records who approved it and when.

Only an approved version is ever shown to anyone else. A draft is never published.

Under Help with the wording, choose what you need. Draft from a brief writes a first version from a sentence or two about the policy. Improve this text tidies the wording and keeps its meaning. Simplify this text rewrites it in plainer words. Check for gaps lists what a trustee might ask about, and doesn't change the text.

Scout Suite shows the suggestion first. Accept suggestion puts it in the editor, after you confirm, and Discard throws it away. Nothing is saved or approved until you save the draft and approve it yourself.

AI help can be wrong or out of date, so you remain responsible for the policy. Check every suggestion against current Scouts requirements and the group's own facts, and replace any [square bracket] with the real detail. A suggestion that you accept is marked AI-assisted until someone approves it, and you must confirm you have checked it first.

Under Who can read it, choose one of three options. Private is for trustees and leaders only. Members shows the policy in the Membership Portal to the parents and members it applies to. Public puts it on a page that anyone can read without signing in, and gives you a link to share.

Choosing Public asks you to confirm first. Changing a policy back to Private or Members takes effect straight away.

Each approved policy gets a next review date. It is counted from the approval date and the review period you chose: 6 months, a year, 2 years or 3 years. Under Details you can change the owner, the review period or the title. Changing the review period on an approved policy moves its next review date.

Scout Suite emails the owner, the Lead Volunteer and the chair 30 days before a review, 7 days before, on the day, and a day after it was due. Each reminder is sent once.

To change an approved policy, edit its text and save. That starts a new draft. The approved version stays in place for everyone until you approve the new draft, and the old one is kept under Version history.

Select View text on any approved version to read it. It's read only.

Print opens the print dialog for the approved version. Download PDF saves a PDF of the same page. Both show the group's name, the version, when it was approved and when it is next due for review.

Families and members see the policies you have shared with them under Policies in the Membership Portal. They can select Read the text to read it on the page, or use the same two buttons.

Archive policy takes it off the list and stops it being shown to members and the public straight away. Its history is kept, and Restore policy brings it back. A policy that has never been approved can be deleted instead.