The Armed Forces Covenant

The Armed Forces Covenant is the nation’s commitment to those who proudly protect our nation, doing so with honour, courage, and commitment. It's a pledge that together we acknowledge and understand that those who serve, or who have served, in the armed forces, and their families, should be treated with fairness and respect in the communities, economy and society they serve with their lives.

Under our own commitment to our armed forces, we recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our business. We'll seek to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant by:

• Promoting the armed forces: promoting the fact that we're an armed forces-friendly organisation to our staff, customers, suppliers, contractors and wider public. We'll encourage our supply chain partners to embrace the Armed Forces Covenant, recognising that it's good for business
• Veterans: supporting and advocating support for the employment of veterans, recognising military skills and qualifications in our recruitment and selection process, advertising vacancies with the Career Transition Partnership for service leavers
• Service spouses and partners: supporting and advocating support for the employment of service spouses and partners; advertising vacancies with the Military Families Federations; providing flexibility in granting leave for service spouses and partners before, during and after a partner’s deployment
• Reserves: supporting our staff who are members of the reserve forces; granting additional leave for annual reserve forces training; supporting any mobilisations; actively encouraging membership of the reserve forces from within our workforce
• Cadet organisations: supporting our staff who are volunteer leaders in military cadet organisations; granting additional leave to attend annual training camps and courses; actively encouraging membership of cadet organisations; supporting local cadet units
• National events: supporting Armed Forces Day, Reserves Day, the Poppy Appeal Day and Remembrance activities
• Armed forces charities: supporting armed forces charities with fundraising and supporting our employees who volunteer to assist
• Forces discount: we'll offer discounts on our products to members of the armed forces community through the Defence Discount Service

Further support

We'll grant up to ten working days per year with pay (or equivalent for part-time employees) to enable reservists to meet their obligations and attend mandatory training in addition to their contractual entitlement.

• We work with service families to remove potential disadvantage for service children when looking for school places
• Up to 5% of properties for each partner landlord may be targeted for former members of the British Armed Forces as defined in S.364 Armed Forces Act 2006
• Co-ordinate the Shropshire Armed Forces Strategic Covenant Board and operational meetings
• Appoint an 'armed forces political champion'
• Lead on the delivery of Armed Forces Day

Please take a look at our current Shropshire Armed Forces Action Plan 2019-2023.

Under our commitment to our armed forces, we can't:

• Provide an advantage to any member of the armed forces community over the civilian community
• Guarantee social housing for transitioning personnel and veterans

If you feel you've been treated unfairly when accessing public services, please contact SAFCC@shropshire.gov.uk, and an advisor will discuss your options with you.

We're hugely grateful to the many businesses who have made a commitment to support members of our armed forces community by signing the Armed Forces Covenant. By signing the covenant, they've made a number of pledges (including discounts and guaranteed job interviews etc) and offers on how they intend to offer their support.

For more information about the Armed Forces Covenant, or for further details on how your business / organisation can also pledge your support, please email SAFCC@Shropshire.gov.uk.

Funding for community activities

The Covenant Fund is a £10m grant given by the government to projects that will benefit the armed forces and the community generally. Projects range from building new nurseries in civilian areas where many armed forces families live, to funding military themed activities that increase understanding between military and civilian communities in the same area. To see whether you could get covenant funding for a project, take a look at the Armed Forces Covenant website.

If you're interested either in applying for funding for a local project, or would like further information on current and previous projects, please email SAFCC@Shropshire.gov.uk

You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Joint Armed Forces Needs Assessment Task & Finish Group - Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council

Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council are both signatories to the Armed Forces Covenant, and both local authorities have established strategic partnership boards which provide strategic governance on the delivery of the covenant within their respective areas.  These boards previously identified the requirement to undertake a joint armed forces needs assessment, within their action plans, to understand the armed forces community across the county of Shropshire. The assessment considered local implications of national research and evidence in relation to key covenant commitments and areas of need identified. The experience of the armed forces community was considered in relation to: education and children’s care, health and wellbeing, housing, employment, the criminal justice system and transition and specialist support.

The final report identified a total of thirty key recommendations, at the heart of which is a need to ask people if they have a military connection and to think what this may mean in terms of service delivery and provision.

For further information please email SAFCC@shropshire.gov.uk