Sign the covenant
The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, should be treated fairly and should not face disadvantages when seeking to access public or private goods and services in the UK.
The Covenant is a voluntary pledge. Organisations may choose to sign up in order to demonstrate their support for the Armed Forces Community and for the principles of the Covenant. All organisations – public, private or voluntary and small, medium or large – are welcome to sign the Covenant.
How to sign
If you are interested in signing the Covenant, please download, complete and sign the template below. For a good practice example please click here. Once you have done so, please e-mail your signed copy to afcovenant@rfca.mod.uk.
How to sign the Covenant template
If you have any questions about signing the Covenant or about what you can pledge, or if you require any guidance during the process, please e-mail afcovenant@rfca.mod.uk. You can also e-mail this address if you are interested in arranging a signing event.
What you can pledge
Your Covenant is yours to write. While all signatories pledge to uphold and act in accordance with the basic principles of the Covenant, organisations are free to tailor their specific pledges to suit their circumstances. In other words, you are free to specify – with as much or as little detail as you think necessary – how exactly you plan to support and uphold the Covenant. Specific pledges can be adapted to make them appropriate to your organisation.
For ideas and suggestions of pledges that you can include in your Covenant template, please look through the sample pledge bank below.
Terms and Conditions
By signing the Armed Forces Covenant (AFC) an organisation demonstrates its intention to support the Armed Forces community and provides the signatory with the opportunity to be recognised by the Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) award. An ERS award shows that the recipient is delivering tangible support for the Armed Forces community. The Ministry of Defence (MOD), as the representative of HM Government, welcomes these commitments and is grateful for the support being pledged and provided. However, neither signing the AFC nor achieving an ERS award should be taken to imply MOD endorsement of any individual or organisation.
ERS awards at Silver and Gold level are reviewed every five years, at which point they can be renewed for a further five years, providing the organisation is continuing to deliver support. However, at any time, the MOD reserves the right to withdraw an award and/or to remove an organisation from the register of AFC signatories, if it considers that the organisation is acting in a way that is incompatible with the spirit of the AFC or otherwise behaves in a way that could bring the AFC, the ERS or the MOD into disrepute.
By signing the AFC and/or achieving an ERS award, an organisation becomes eligible to use the Covenant and ERS logos. However, this permission remains at all times conditional upon complying with the branding guidelines. Any organisation that is removed from the AFC register or has an ERS award withdrawn must remove the related branding from all corporate material including but not limited to its websites, social media channels, publicity leaflets etc as soon as practicable.