Armed Forces Covenant
We support the Armed Forces Community and honour the Armed Forces Covenant.
TLSBU was re-accredited with a Gold Award in 2023 for a period of 5 years.
he Armed Forces Covenant is a promise from the nation to those who serve. It says we will do all we can to ensure they are treated fairly and not disadvantaged in their day-to-day lives. This includes offering injured servicemen and women and bereaved families extra support where appropriate.
The University has achieved the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award, which acknowledges our support and advocacy for the needs of the military community.
Through the Covenant, the University will:
- Support the employment of veterans through the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) and the Forces Families Jobs Portal to advertise some of our vacancies
- Support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve Forces, including accommodating their training and deployment where possible. Employees who are required to attend military training and annual deployment exercises will be granted 15 days with pay in addition to normal leave entitlement.
- Offer a degree of flexibility in granting leave for service parents, spouses and partners before, during and after an operational deployment
- Recognise military skills and qualifications when recruiting and when relevant.
- Offer support to local cadet units, by encouraging employees to volunteer using their discretionary voluntary leave of up to 5 days.
- Offer work experience and job shadowing opportunities for cadets at LSBU, managed through our Employability Service.
- Aim to promote Armed Forces Week to employees and students through communications, events, and encourage members of the Reserve Forces to wear their uniform on Armed Forces and Reservist Day.
- Invite representatives of the Armed Forces Community to Careers and Recruitment Fairs and events for employees and students such as Women’s Day and wellbeing events.
- Attend a remembrance service annually on Armistice Day to honour members of the Armed Forces, who have died in the line of duty.
- Provide sports facilities through LSBU Active by offering free membership to staff who are current reservists or veterans from the UK Armed Forces community.
- Provide up to 20 places in our LSBU Sport Rehabilitation clinic (based at Southwark campus) for the ongoing assessment and treatment of veterans of the UK Armed Forces with MSK issues. The assessment and treatment is provided by students on our Sport Rehabilitation programmes under direct supervision of fully qualified staff at all times.
- Support Armed Forces Community charities through events during Raising and Giving (RAG) week and Armed Forces Week.
- Aid Armed Forces recruitment efforts by matching Armed Forces employment gaps to current LSBU undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, through recruitment events managed by the Employability Service.
- Endeavour to work with the Armed Forces Community to offer teaching opportunities to our students across multiple disciplines.
- Our Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation is the University Executive sponsor for our Armed Forces Covenant activities.
- The University has a dedicated Armed Forces Community Network organising group, whose focus is on shaping and widening our offer to serving and veteran armed forces members.
- Work with LSBU Group organisations, such as Colleges and Sixth Form Academy, and military families to ensure that their children’s education does not suffer as a result of their parents service.
- Provide support in accessing opportunities to Higher Education at LSBU for service members families.
- Honour Enhanced Learning Credits (ELCs) across a range of LSBU courses where appropriate.
- Commit to support the Armed Forces Community including Cadets, Spouses and families with developing their enterprise skills either through access to our internal entrepreneurship events or through our wider external enterprise and community partners.