The UK’s chief scout, Dwayne Fields, has called for workers to be granted greater flexibility to enable them to undertake voluntary work. Under his proposal, workers would have the right to take up to 35 hours’ leave each year for voluntary work and could take the leave in hourly increments. Fields argued that companies would benefit from having happier employees and that voluntary work could help to “build confidence, self-worth and the ability to empower others”. Fields also suggested that the measure could come under government support.
Fields was appointed to his role in September and used his appearance as a guest editor on the Today programme to explore how volunteering can help individuals and communities. He revealed that he had joined the scouts after arriving in the UK from Jamaica at the age of six. Fields claimed that scouting had saved him after a run-in with people who had stolen his moped led to a gun being pulled on him. Scouting gave him the confidence not to seek retribution, he said.
During his guest editorship, Fields visited the Hussain Soup Kitchen in Peterborough. He interviewed volunteers offering food to the homeless and those in financial difficulty. There he asked a young volunteer why she put in the work: “I saw my mum and my aunties and my uncles – they all help out … I wanted to help people as well.”
Fields also spent time at the Light Project, which offers a range of services to homeless people in the city. There he spoke to people who had struggled to ask for help and argued that kindness costs nothing. He also rejected claims that Scouts has “gone woke” after some critics suggested that the organisation was promoting particular political views. Fields insisted that scouting reflected society and added: “We’re there for the same reasons: to have fun, make friends, learn, develop skills and develop confidence.
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