Strategic intent

MISSION STATEMENT

The Trust’s mission is:

To improve opportunities and outcomes for children and young adults whose education has been adversely impacted by their families’ service in the Armed Forces.

OBJECTIVES

The Constitution of the charity defines the objectives as:

For the public benefit the advancement of education (including social and physical training) of people under the age of 25 years who are or were dependents of serving or former members of the Armed Forces of the Crown in such ways as the charity trustees think fit, including by:

  • Awarding such persons scholarships, maintenance allowances or grants tenable at any school or university, college or institution of higher education
  • Providing their education (including the study of music, other arts or sports), to undertake travel in furtherance of that education or to prepare for entry into any occupation, trade or profession on leaving the educational establishment
  • Providing to educational and training establishments funding to enable additional resources (not otherwise available) to be made available to support the education of such persons

In meeting these objectives, the Trustees will follow the criteria outlined below:

  • We welcome applications from servicemen and women currently serving in the armed forces on behalf of children whose education has been compromised or put at risk because of a family member’s service.
  • We will consider applications from ex service personnel, but applications related to children born after the parents have left the service are unlikely to succeed as these children will probably not be educationally disadvantaged due to service life.
  • We also welcome applications from schools or colleges providing education to the children of service personnel.

 TYPES OF FUNDING

The Trust will distinguish between individual and collective funding grants.

  • An individual grant is a grant awarded to an individual child who requires funds to support education as defined in the Trust objectives.
  • A collective grant is a grant awarded to an education provider (normally a school or education

The Trust will seek to assess the effectiveness of its individual and collective grants in terms of educational outcomes and aim to take this into account in its grant-making decisions.

Acknowledging the need to maintain fiscal probity Trustees will determine annually the amount of funding available for individual and collective grants.

The Trust will not normally give grants for university tuition fees where a student loan is available.

BROADER SCOPE OF ACTIVITIES

The Trust will maintain a board of Trustees with the relevant skill sets to understand the challenges faced by service pupils as well as a working knowledge of the current education system at all levels including reception, Key Stages 1-5, and tertiary education. This skill set of Trustees will be reviewed annually by the Chair of Trustees.

The Trust will endeavour to reach as wide a base of service personnel as possible particularly ensuring that it is accessible to other ranks of all three services.

The Trust will endeavour to work closely with COBSEO, SCISS, SCiP, the Directorate of Children and Young People and other like-minded institutions as required and seek opportunities for exchanging best practice.

The Trust will monitor Government policy insofar as it impacts the core applicant base and may, where appropriate, make available to policy makers the benefit of its experience.

The Trust recognises that, from time to time, it may need to recruit advisors to assist in specialised areas (eg. education, marketing, IT, property).

The Trust will maintain their relationship with their tenant Cognita, ensuring that the Trust’s main asset is being well maintained and cared for and will also monitor the risk of failure of Cognita as their rent is the prime source of grant income for the Trust.

The above criteria will be reviewed annually.

Alan Behagg, Trust Chairman. December 2022