Government Grant

On behalf of the Home Office, and as the grant recipient, CST distributes an £18m government grant that funds commercial security guards (as distinct from CST staff and volunteer security personnel) at Jewish communal premises throughout Britain. This is of great importance in enabling British Jews to afford the levels of guarding that they need. 

The commercial security guards supplement the physical security measures that CST’s own charitable funds have helped put in place at each location. 

The government grant specifies that Jewish schools are the priority recipients for this funding. After all schools and synagogues have received a grant contribution, the remaining money is made available to other Jewish locations. It is CST’s responsibility to manage this process and to ensure that the grant is properly disbursed and utilised.

Working with the Home Office and the Department for Education, CST assesses the security of all potential recipients, and then works with locations to ensure that the guarding is appropriate.

During 2022/23 CST distributed funding from the grant to:

• 191 schools, including nurseries, primaries, secondaries, higher education religious colleges and yeshivas.
• 29 youth movement camps
• 221 synagogues
• 7 multi-site guarding operations, including a further 100 synagogues
• 27 Jewish community buildings

CST’s management of the process included over 5,000 payments to recipients for security guarding costs, the employment of over 700 guards from 55 security companies and 2,767 spot checks of guarding standards at sites throughout the UK.