Managing Trustee Duties and Calendar

UK Scout groups have six annual duties they need to carry out as charities — things like approving the accounts, holding the AGM, reviewing safeguarding procedures, and completing the GDPR audit. The Trustee Duties tab in Scoutworks gives trustees a single place to track all of these, assign them to the right people, and see what is coming up in the months ahead.

Where to find it#

Go to Group Insights in the sidebar, then click the Trustee Duties tab. Scoutworks automatically creates entries for the six standard duties when the feature is first turned on for your group, so there is no blank-slate setup to do.

The six standard duties#

When the feature is turned on, these duties are created automatically for your group:

You can edit any of these — change the title, set a due date, assign an owner, or add notes — and you can add your own duties if your group has additional recurring obligations.

Adding and editing duties#

Click Add Duty in the top-right of the tab to add a new entry. Click any existing row to open it for editing.

Marking a duty complete#

Open the row menu for a duty (the three-dot icon on the right) and choose Mark Complete. The status changes immediately and the completion date is recorded. You can also open the duty and set the status to Completed from inside the edit sheet.

Completed duties stay in the list so there is a record of when each obligation was met — useful for the annual report and for any Charity Commission enquiries.

Switching between list and timeline views#

Use the toggle buttons in the top-right corner of the tab to switch between:

• List view — the full table, sortable and filterable
• Timeline view — duties grouped by month across the next 12 months, so you can see what is coming up at a glance

Any duty with a due date that has passed without being completed shows an Overdue badge in red.

Subscribing to the duties calendar#

Duties can be added to any calendar app that supports iCal feeds — Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, and most others.

To get the subscription link:

1. On the Trustee Duties tab, look for the Calendar Subscription panel (usually at the top of the tab or in the tab's settings area).
2. Click Copy link to copy the feed URL to your clipboard.
3. Paste the URL into your calendar app's "subscribe to calendar" or "add calendar from URL" option.

The feed updates automatically — any changes to due dates or new duties you add will appear in your calendar app the next time it refreshes, without needing to re-subscribe.

Rotating the calendar link#

If you need to stop someone from accessing the calendar feed — for example if a trustee has left — you can rotate the link. Click Rotate link in the Calendar Subscription panel. The old link stops working immediately and a new one is generated. Anyone who was subscribed with the old link will stop seeing updates; they would need the new link to resubscribe.

The duties tab in the board pack#

When you export a Board Pack PDF from the Actions menu on Group Insights, the current duty list is included — showing each duty, its status, owner, and due date. No extra steps needed.

What's next#

• Getting Started as a Trustee — signing in and finding Group Insights.
• Managing the Strategic Risk Register — tracking organisational risks alongside duties.
• Subscribing to Your Calendar Feed — the parent-facing calendar feed, separate from this one.