Age UK Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-10)

We, the undersigned, commit to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and support the Armed Forces Community. We recognise the value Serving Personnel, both Regular and Reservists, Veterans and military families contribute to our business and our country.

The Armed Forces Covenant

An enduring covenant between the people of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Government and all those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces of the Crown and their families

The first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. Our Armed Forces fulfil that responsibility on behalf of the Government, sacrificing some civilian freedoms, facing danger and, sometimes, suffering serious injury or death as a result of their duty. Families also play a vital role in supporting the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. In return, the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army and the Royal Air Force, together with their families. They deserve our respect and support, and fair treatment.

Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved.

This obligation involves the whole of society: it includes voluntary and charitable bodies, private organisations, and the actions of individuals in supporting the Armed Forces. Recognising those who have performed military duty unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution. This has no greater expression than in upholding this Covenant.

Section 1: Principles of the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant

1.1 We Age UK Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly will endeavour in our business dealings to uphold the key principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, which are:
- no member of the Armed Forces Community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen;
- and in some circumstances that special treatment may be appropriate especially for the injured or bereaved.
Section 2: Demonstrating our commitment

2.1 Age UK Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our business. We will seek to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, by pledging to the following:
- Armed Forces Friendly
- UK Service Veterans And Leavers
- UK Service Spouses And Partners
- Flexible Leave For Spouses
- UK Reservists
- UK Cadets
- Armed Forces Day
We also pledge the following:

promoting the fact that we are an armed forces-friendly organisation; We will do this by making it an integral part of all front facing communication mediums such as our Cornwall Link Platform, Website and Social Media as well as our work with communities and individuals seeking to support the employment of veterans young and old and working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), in order to establish a tailored employment pathway for Ser-vice Leavers; As a small local charity, we will help ensure that any veterans have access to employment pathways, including access to volunteering opportunities to build experience and portfolios, either with ourselves or our partners within the Voluntary Community Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector striving to support the employment of Service spouses and partners; We recognise service spouses and partners have unique considerations compared to most and will make full use of our flexible working arrangements to best balance their needs and those of our charity. We will always work with other organisations, especially those who we know to support Armed Forces Communities to help maximise employment potential for service spouses and partners. endeavouring to offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for Service spouses and partners before, during and after a partners deployment; Our HR policies offer discretion for the granting of leave, including special and compas-sionate leave in addition to normal leave. We will make full use of the provision we have to make sure we can accommodate these needs as much as possible. seeking to support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve forc-es, including by accommodating their training and deployment where possible; As a small local charity, we will where possible support reserve forces employees with their Reserve forces activities giving consideration to where it does not compromise the business requirements or sustainability of our charity. offering support to our local cadet units, either in our local community or in lo-cal schools, where possible; Where possible we will work with cadet forces to raise their profile and promote activities where community involvement would be of mutual benefit. aiming to actively participate in Armed Forces Day; We will make sure we have active participation in Armed Forces Day by working with local veteran support groups, including the promotion of their activities and wherever possible offering transportation using our electric mini-buses for veterans who would otherwise be unable to participate. any additional commitments Age UK Cornwall and Isles of Scilly could make (based on lo-cal circumstances). As a local charity we will actively engage and work with other veteran and armed forces organisations to maximise and complement the support availa-ble. We will collaborate with those groups and organisations to identify unmet need, develop appropriate services and pursue funding to continuously im-prove the support available to veterans, their families and the Armed Forces Communities. We will promote the provision of our Transport Access People (TAP) service throughout the local Armed Forces Communities Network so that veterans, their families and the Armed Forces communities are aware of our volunteer driver service to help patients access health and medical appointments.

2.2 We will publicise these commitments through our literature and/or on our website, setting out how we will seek to honour them and inviting feedback from the Service community and our customers on how we are doing.