Anti-fraud Policy

The Commercial Education Trust (CET) expects the highest standards of honesty and integrity among its staff, trustees, volunteer assessors and grant applicants. Therefore:

• In all matters to do with grant awards, payments and grants management, CET expects that all the information provided by applicants is given in good faith, with due care and attention and, to the best of the applicant’s knowledge, is accurate. This applies to information given in writing on the application form, over the telephone or during an assessment visit, in progress reports, by email and all other correspondence with us.
• We reserve the right to speak to other grant making trusts, other funders and other relevant parties in carrying out our due diligence on grant applications before awarding a grant. We also reserve the right to share relevant information in our possession with other funders subject to current data protection legislation.
• The discovery of any information being provided fraudulently or not in good faith is likely to result in a grant not being awarded, or a grant which has been awarded being cancelled. Where payments have already been made it is likely we will require that funds are returned.
• If we feel there is sufficient evidence to suggest we have been the subject of a fraud or attempted fraud, then we will report the fraud to the appropriate authorities. This is likely to include the police and the Charity Commission, if appropriate.
• Upon detection of fraud or any related criminal activity we will work with the relevant authorities to investigate the incident and to pursue prosecution. In addition, we reserve the right to seek civil recovery of any funds that have not been used for the stated purposes as well as our reasonable costs incurred in our seeking recovery of such funds.
• CET does not tolerate any form of fraud, corruption or bribery and will therefore take appropriate action against any employee, volunteer assessor, trustee, grant applicant or other external party or person engaged in any such practices whether in a direct attempt to influence the outcome of a grant award or to obtain other favourable treatment.

We would expect any member of staff, volunteer assessor, trustee or external party or person to advise us if they are aware or suspect that someone might be stealing from, defrauding or attempting to use inappropriate influence with CET or is misusing any grant that we have awarded.