Figure 1.-- A major change in the Cub uniform was made in the late-2000s. We see the boys wearing navy blue rather than green jumpers. We also notice blue shorts. We also note grey knee socks with blue bands and blue socks. Apparently the cap has been discontinued. One boy has purple bands (or "trim") round the top of his socks. It is likely this is because he attends a school with a purple uniform, where shorts and long socks are still worn. Click on the image for a color discussion.

The British Scout Association in the 2000s introduced a new uniforms for the various Scouting levels. For the cubs, the change was minor, but had a major impact. The smart green jumpers were replaced with more loose-fitting green sweatshirts tops, with a slight split at the bottom of both sides, and the back slightly longer than the front. This was intended to look "cool" but cub leaders who liked smart looking cubs found that however hard you tried, it was much harder to look smart in these tops. Also, for many years, there was NO official bottom half of a cub uniform. Although grey shorts used to be the norm, when arguments arose over switching to long trousers, Scout HQ in the end left it up to individual packs to decide and did not specify any official trousers or shorts. This remains the case to this day. However, until the 2000s, virtually all packs had either grey shorts or grey long trousers. The new uniform introduced in the 2000s included the option of long blue cargo trousers or blue cargo shorts. Most packs took this to be the new official uniform, and switched to blue cargo trousers. Packs determined to stick close to tradition, who until this point had kept grey shorts, tended to switch to blue cargo shorts. However, a few packs dotted around the U.K. realised that there was no need to change at all; there was no official bottom half of a cub uniform, and there still isn't, so packs with grey shorts, long socks and garters could keep them if they wished. This is a picture of one pack in London which did that and has retained as traditional a cub uniform as is possible, with grey shorts, grey long socks and garters with green tabs to hold the socks up (figure 1). Some of the boys wear blue shorts and socks. The boys in light blue tops are Beavers who will soon move up to join the Cubs. They are wearing blue cargo trousers, but will switch to the cubs grey shorts and green tops when they move up.