Raising a concern

If you want to raise a concern about the Trust, an organisation we’re currently funding (or one which has applied for a grant), or if you’re unhappy with our service to you as an applicant, here’s how to do it.

We take all concerns seriously and we have processes to investigate them thoroughly. We will honour any specific requests that you make regarding anonymity and confidentiality. If you work for the organisation that you are raising concerns about – or if you’re a named contact on an application or funding agreement – please advise us of your wish for confidentiality as you raise your concern with us.

If we receive information that suggests people may be at risk, we may need to share this information with the police or other appropriate authorities. In these cases, we would still take steps to preserve your confidentiality. To protect investigative processes, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to give you information about the progress or outcome of any investigation that we conduct.

Please remember:

All projects we fund must sign terms and conditions before a grant is paid, and must be delivered as described in the application form – unless they have agreed a variation with us

  • We can’t enter into a discussion about any disagreement you have with a particular funding decision, unless it involves a breach of the terms and conditions of the funding. In the latter case, we’ll review the information you give us and whether it would have affected our decision.
  • We can’t become involved with any personal disagreements that you may have with a particular organisation. In these cases, you should talk to the organisation in question
  • While we can investigate breaches of a funding agreement, we can’t enforce the law. If your concern involves a breach of the law, you should consider raising the matter with the relevant regulatory body or, in criminal matters, the police.

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Raise a safeguarding concern about a project being funded or in application

You’ll find more information in our safeguarding policy, and you can email us info@covenantfund.org.uk

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Raise financial concerns about a project being funded or in application, or about the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust

You can:

  • Email us info@covenantfund.org.uk
  • Report misuse of government funds anonymously by emailing grantsmisuse@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
  • Report a potential fraud – defined as an intentional act of dishonesty by one or more people with the intent of making a gain for themselves or anyone else, or inflicting a loss on another – by emailing fraud@covenantfund.org.uk . Please give us as much detail as you can. Please don’t alert the organisation or individual in question, and don’t try and investigate the issue yourself.

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Make a complaint about our service

Making a complaint won’t impact the service you receive from us – if your complaint is about an application, this won’t affect your chances of getting a grant from us in the future. You can complain if you believe:

  • maladministration has taken place. For example, if we’ve delayed, made mistakes in, or failed to follow the procedures in our published application process
  • we’ve failed to give you access to information or have given you incorrect advice or information
  • we haven’t treated you politely
  • we’ve discriminated against you or not treated you fairly.

We can only review an application again if:

  • we discover that we didn’t follow the published procedures for assessing your application
  • you can provide evidence that we’ve misunderstood a significant part of your application
  • you can provide evidence that we didn’t take notice of relevant information that we asked you for at application stage.

We can’t accept complaints about a rejected application, though we understand you may be disappointed if your application is turned down. The complaints process can’t be used as a way to appeal against a decision on giving a grant, if we’ve followed our published decision making process.

To make a complaint like this, email us info@covenantfund.org.uk and put ‘Complaint’ in the subject line.

When making your complaint you should set out the facts as clearly as possible, in a logical order. Remember to include important details and dates where possible. If you make a complaint, we will treat you with respect, and we expect you to treat our staff in the same way.

If you can’t make your complaint in writing, please email us at info@covenantfund.org.uk and we’ll arrange to have a conversation with you to discuss options.

What will happen next?

We’ll confirm receipt of your complaint within three working days. We’ll tell you how you can contact the person who is dealing with your complaint and when you can expect a reply. You’ll receive a written response to your complaint within 10 working days. If we can’t give a full response in this time, we’ll tell you why and when you are likely to receive it.

If you’re not satisfied with the response you receive, you can email our Chief Executive via info@covenantfund.org.uk; addressed to the CEO. You must do this within four weeks of receiving our response to your original complaint.

Please tell us:

  • what happened
  • when it happened
  • who dealt with you
  • what you would like us to do to put things right.

Our response will advise if you’re able to progress to progress your complaint, or whether another regulatory body (such as the Information Commissioners Office or Charities Commission) would be more appropriate in handling your complaint. We will provide you with the appropriate contact details in our response.

If you’re not satisfied with our Chief Executive’s reply, you can consider approaching the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (England, Northern Ireland and Wales). Its role is to consider complaints that public bodies haven’t acted properly or have provided a poor service. By law, the Ombudsman is independent of the government and the Civil Service, and has wide powers to investigate. Normally, your complaint will first need to go through our complaints procedure and would need to be raised with the Ombudsman within one year of your original complaint.

To raise a case with the Ombudsman, you’ll need to talk to your MP. The Ombudsman’s services are free.

Further information

If you use our complaints procedure, you are agreeing that we can use any personal information you send us for purposes connected with your complaint. We may also give your personal information to other people and organisations if we have to do so by law or if you have given us permission.

Equal opportunities

We are committed to equal opportunities and take complaints about discrimination seriously. We may use complaints about discrimination to review our policies and procedures. This is to make sure we treat everyone equally.

We will keep all information confidential.

If you need any help, you can contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

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