Defence Committee 

Oral evidence: The Armed Forces Covenant, HC 572

Tuesday 25 February 2025

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 25 February 2025.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker; Mike Martin; Ian Roome; Michelle Scrogham; Fred Thomas.

Questions 56 - 83

Witnesses

I: Lieutenant Commander (Retd) Susie Hamilton, Scottish Veterans Commissioner, Office of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner; David Johnstone, Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, Office of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner; Colonel James Phillips, Veterans Commissioner for Wales, Office of the Veterans Commissioner for Wales.

II: Mike Callaghan, Policy Manager, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA); Councillor Lis Burnett, Presiding Member, Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA); Kate Davies, Director of Health and Justice, Armed Forces and Sexual Assault Commissioning, NHS England; Councillor Gillian Ford, Deputy Chair, Wellbeing Board, Local Government Association.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Susie Hamilton, David Johnstone and James Phillips.

Q56            Chair: I call to order this evidence session of the Defence Committee on the armed forces covenant inquiry. For today’s first panel, we have, in person, Colonel James Phillips, who is the veterans commissioner for Wales. Online, we have Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Susie Hamilton, who is the Scottish veterans commissioner. We also have with us David Johnstone, who is the Northern Ireland veterans commissioner. A warm welcome to all three of your good selves, and thank you for your service to our armed forces community.

Let me just get things rolling with regard to the covenant in the devolved Administrations. In your opinion, how well is the covenant serving the armed forces community?

James Phillips: If I take Wales as my area of expertise, the covenant is well understood at the strategic level, so by Welsh Government. There is a commitment in terms of policy and engagement, but not necessarily resource. That is probably common across the United Kingdom.

Of course, as you filter down the layers of government, there are champions and there is an understanding of the covenant within local government, but it is discretionary. Although there is due regard in some areas, what does due regard mean? It has not really been tested. It is very dependent on personalities in the champion roles within local government and within the NHS and other statutory bodies. It depends really on their interest. It is never a single role. It is a secondary duty for those people, whether the elected official in the champion role or the official in that role.

In Wales, we are quite lucky because, particularly in the local authorities, we have the armed forces liaison officers. There are seven who map to the NHS regions, which follow the traditional county structure of Wales. They signpost, advocate and train in the covenant within their regions, so that is an area of best practice where it works well.

The other aspect is the veteran community; 80% of veterans left service before the covenant came into play, so their understanding of it is immature in some regards. They read the covenant, which is a promise between the nation and themselves for the service that they have done, but do not really understand what that means. When they see “prioritisation for service-related injuries”, what does “prioritisation” mean within an NHS in Wales that is fundamentally broken at the moment?

There are various areas there where the covenant is open to interpretation, and so it lacks teeth to really ensure that our service population and the armed forces community in general are looked after in the way that perhaps we would like.

Q57            Chair: Thank you very much, Colonel Phillips. I will come on to best practice and what is going well and not so well, but I just wanted to get a brief introduction as to how well you think the covenant is serving our community.

Susie Hamilton: Having worked in the veterans arena in Scotland for about 17 years, I have seen that there has, undoubtedly, been improvement in services and support for veterans over that time. I would not necessarily say that the covenant legislation alone has driven this, but things are definitely better for the veteran community than they were at the start of the century.

It is very inconsistent and there are patchy areas. As James has referred to, there is a big difference between awareness at the policymaking level and at the frontline delivery level, and also in levels of awareness in the veteran community. There is a lot of misunderstanding about what the covenant means to veterans and their families.[1]

David Johnstone: As members are probably aware, I am only in post from 1 January, so I am still coming to grips with the details of things such as the armed forces covenant. If I could just comment, there is this difference between perception and reality in terms of those who perhaps know the detail of the covenant and what it is intended to achieve, and how well veterans on the ground, employers and various other stakeholders understand the reality of it. That is what I can see, arriving at this relatively recently.

Within Northern Ireland, of course, we have a slightly additional complication because of the landscape here. In some ways, in terms of a general overview, it is working. It does have benefits for veterans, but there is still work to do.

Q58            Chair: I will be coming back to that, but I just want to ask your good selves for examples of good practice, and whether there are any particular issues that you are facing in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. Are there examples of good practice that could be emulated in other parts of the UK, as well as particular issues that require special attention?

Susie Hamilton: Some examples of good practice have also highlighted areas of challenge, but we have had some good practice in the health sphere in Scotland. In terms of mental health, there are Veterans First Point organisations in six health boards in Scotland, which are co-funded by the health board and the Scottish Government. As well as providing clinical support, they provide much needed peer support and help during the waiting period for clinical treatment, which has the effect of having much better outcomes for the veterans involved.

This has also highlighted a challenge, in that NHS Lothian has decided to stop funding its Veterans First Point. Despite the covenant legislation that is going to happen, the covenant will not be able to stop that happening, to the great anguish of veterans in Lothian.

It also highlights that we are not recording data and metrics in a way that is really going to tell us what effect these services have. The effect may be more veterans accessing crisis mental health teams, more attendances at A&E, or possibly even losing tenancies because of mental health needs. None of that will be measured or captured, so the difference that is being made by the Veterans First Point or lack thereof is not going to be highlighted. We really need to be better at measuring some of these impacts, so that we can really see where resources have to be focused. Resources, as we know, are extremely stretched at the moment for the whole community and for everybody.

In terms of other positive examples, there has been some really good collaboration in Glasgow with the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, the city council, and two big charities, SSAFA and DMWS. That is providing a really holistic service of support for everything from housing to health and social support, and they are collecting some good data. We should see some really good data from that, and see whether that is something that can be replicated and that we can trust that data. Seeing that really good collaboration is really effective, and I would like to highlight that.

I would also highlight work done by Skills Development Scotland, which is Scotland’s skills agency, and the Scottish credit and qualifications framework, which has translated military qualifications on to the Scottish framework. They are automatically on the England and Wales framework, but not on the Scottish framework. It has also created a tool where service people can translate some of their meta skills into language that employers would understand and language that can be used on their CV. It is called the skills discovery tool on the My World of Work website, and it really is a genuinely a good piece of work and something that should and could be replicated across the UK. Those are just a few examples.

Q59            Chair: Thank you very much for that. In fact, it is good that you touched on mental health issues as well, because Lieutenant General Sir Nick Pope, when he was giving evidence to our Committee, mentioned support in terms of special educational needs and disabilities, and certain things that would be available in England. When a family moved to, for example, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, that support in that particular format was not available because of the lack of relevant EHCPs, so that is where there are some differences in terms of policy. Mr Johnstone, perhaps you could touch upon that as well as explaining about the good practices.

David Johnstone: Certainly in Northern Ireland, we have very much a bottom-up rather than top-down service when it comes to some of the issues around the armed forces covenant. On the ground, at the coalface, as I call it, we have very good delivery of health services to veterans, particularly in the area of mental health and recovery from physical injuries. Having Paul Byrne from the Veterans Welfare Service, along with various third-sector charity organisations, definitely means that we are in a good place. There are multiple examples that I could give of people who have managed to reach out or have been signposted to the VWS and then very quickly accessed the medical care and support that they need. There is certainly a very positive reality for veterans on the ground.

Could it be improved? Yes, of course. Our health service in Northern Ireland probably has the longest waiting lists of anywhere in the United Kingdom. Sometimes, veterans have the perception that they are not receiving care if they go the normal route through the health service, but everyone in Northern Ireland suffers from our current health service challenges.

It is positive in terms of veterans reaching the medical services that they need. If I were to give one example of a negative or a deficit, I was in with a statutory body yesterday, which indicated that a veteran had spent 40 weeks living in his car in recent years, given some personal challenges that he had around his family. It was certainly a surprise and a shock to me that, in 2025, we have a veteran who feels he has no other option but to live in his car. Certainly for him, the armed forces covenant was not really impacting his life, so that is just an example of a negative, which I am sure is replicated in other parts of the UK as well.

Chair: That was a particularly shocking example for all of us to learn across the UK.

James Phillips: In terms of what Wales does well, I would highlight three areas. One is wider than Welsh Government, but is from Welsh Government and society as a whole. It is the recognition that the armed forces get. There is still a very strong community feel in Wales. The veteran population in Wales is 4.5% of the civil population, as opposed to 3.8% in England, so there is a higher density of veterans and people who have experienced service, or who know a service person within the community, and that value of service is still strong.

That is supported by a number of good networks, again from Welsh Government down, with their armed forces expert group, which brings in key stakeholders from the single services, charities, NHS and statutory bodies in terms of quarterly meetings. Below that, there are a number of working groups that look at core areas such as housing, employment, education and training, and health and wellbeing, and bring in the subject matter experts.

At the community level, there are community covenant forums in health, but also in wider local government areas, which are supported by the champions and by the armed forces liaison officers—I come on to them as a real win in Wales. There are, as I said, seven, who sit in clusters and each support two or three local authorities. They work to train staff on the covenant and on due regard, to signpost veterans in their areas to services and support, and to work in co-ordinating effect from the third sector and statutory bodies to ensure that there is relatively joined-up support not just for veterans but for the armed forces community as a whole. They work with schools and with schools liaison officers, who are also supported in Wales to support service children.

Underneath that is the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, which is the primary MOD funding mechanism for service and support for welfare and wellbeing for veterans. It supports something called the VPPP—Veterans’ Places, Pathways and People—which is funded to bring together organisations that support the veteran community in terms of most of the things that are provided for veterans, whether it be in the employment space, the housing space, the health space, or supporting wellbeing. They have eight projects that are funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. They have 100 stakeholders that join virtual meetings and engage.

That is where we benefit in Wales. The geographic scale of Wales is such that it is parochial. People know each other, so if a veteran falls into the network, they might not fall into the right place in the network, but they can be signposted to it.

What do we not do quite so well? There is a growing gap between the health service in Wales and in England. As my colleague David said, when the national health service in a nation is struggling, it is very difficult to provide priority for service-related injuries. There is also a perception from the veteran community, as David said, that they are not valued and not being supported for their service-related injuries, which might be difficult to relate to service. You are asking a clinician to decide on a veteran who did national service, perhaps, and needs a knee replacement in his 70s or 80s. Is that related to his two years’ service in the military, or is that just degradation? How do you prioritise him over the wider civilian population?

It is relatively easy to do with a young service leaver who has an amputated leg. You can see that they come with their medical documents and can move into the transition to health service. I am not saying that that is faultless, because there are issues in terms of transference of data, but it is easier to demonstrate that linkage to service. It is difficult, and that is where the covenant and the due regard piece in health is problematic, because it is that prioritisation. What does that mean? Where do you fit into a waiting list that is already full of people who have been waiting for two years for elective surgery? That in itself is difficult.

There are two other areas that I would quickly cover. One is social housing. Again, it is difficult for everyone in Wales. There is a shortage of social and affordable housing. You hear about veterans who are living in their car—and we have that in Wales as well. When you take a veteran who is used to a very disciplined service and lifestyle and then try to put them into crisis housing, which is full of people who have addiction problems and perhaps criminal tendencies, it does not work well. That is why veterans prefer to go into veteran-specific crisis units that support them and their needs. They are with other veterans. They are not in a chaotic lifestyle and are not living alongside people who challenge them.

The other one is veterans in the justice system. In England, you have something called Op NOVA, which provides a holistic wrap for veterans and justice. We do not have that in Wales.

Q60            Chair: We will be coming on to the veterans issues very shortly. Mr Johnstone, you alluded earlier to the unique context of Northern Ireland. In particular, David McLoughlin, the director of defence healthcare at the MOD, mentioned that the legal interpretation of the Good Friday agreement, as well as the Armed Forces Act 2021, complicated the implementation of the covenant. With regard to that unique context, how much does that affect the application of the covenant, not just for veterans, but more widely within Northern Ireland?

David Johnstone: This allows me to expand a bit on my comment around bottom up versus top down. We do not have a top-down delivery of the armed forces covenant, due to the current political makeup, particularly at Stormont, where the largest party just refuses to acknowledge and engage with anything around the armed forces covenant. Areas such as housing are, of course, a devolved matter in Northern Ireland. Where the Executive is not willing to engage, you immediately have a problem of that top-down delivery.

As I said, there is certainly really good work on the ground from the bottom up in terms of what is happening to veterans, but perception and recognition is a significant point. Veterans really want to be recognised for their service. When Belfast City Council, for instance, recently reversed a vote to implement the armed forces covenant, that was very disappointing and very frustrating to veterans, certainly in Belfast city.

It was probably described as the current situation in Stormont being around receive mode. Emails come in regarding the armed forces covenant. They are confirmed as received. That is as far as it goes, and nothing happens. How we go about addressing that is education. It is pointing out that the armed forces covenant is not about advantage to veterans. It is about ensuring that there is no disadvantage and, therefore, that no one across United Kingdom should feel threatened by the fact that veterans are being given equality around this issue. That, for me, is important as we move forward.

Chair: Thank you very much. You touched upon veterans issues, and I want to move on to the covenant and veterans.

Q61            Alex Baker: You have given us a really comprehensive answer on how you think the covenant is serving our veterans community. I will come back to veterans, but I want to ask you one question just to cover off a piece that we are interested in. You are all people who have distinguished records of service, and you will have exposure to our serving armed forces community. Do you have any thoughts on how well the covenant is serving our current serving population?

James Phillips: As Susie said in her opening piece, there has been significant improvement over the last 10 years in terms of support for the wider armed forces community. It grew with Afghanistan and seeing casualties coming home from there, and the growth of charities such as Help for Heroes and the nascent armed forces covenant that was developed then.

As we have said all the way through, there is a good understanding of the covenant by organisations that support the armed forces community, but the problem is that we outsource so many of our support services now for the armed forces community. There are no military hospitals. Families are dealt with within the NHS. Your second-line medical support as a service person in the UK is delivered through the NHS. The lines are blurred as to where service is provided by the MOD and where it is provided by other agencies.

I have seen that at the moment in the particular case of a service family in Cardiff, where a special forces soldier—someone who, you would have thought, would receive the very highest levels of support and care for the service that they have done—is sick at home with a severe mental and physical health condition. They have fallen through the gaps and are about to be medically discharged from the service. There is not really a holistic care package around that family. It was brought to my attention as veterans commissioner, and I engaged with the chain of command and with Ministers, and now the system is kicking in.

As we abrogate more responsibility from the MOD to civilian agencies, the chain of command has less visibility of what is happening for its people, and less control over that. Therefore, that duty of care that is provided from within defence is less effective.

That is something that we have, unfortunately, seen recently in terms of some of the discipline and some of the sexual assaults and attacks that are taking place within the armed forces, where we are transitioning from a service delivery model, which was the chain of command completely, to something that is now far more distributed in terms of encouraging people to live out in the community and taking people off the patch. There is less ability for the chain of command to deliver that support that it always used to.

David Johnstone: In terms of the question, it would be specifically around the transition of existing armed forces members as they leave. The areas that would come to my attention would be around schools—someone who is perhaps either posted back into the province or is transitioning. There is a real challenge around having an address in an area that allows them to send their children to the school of their choice.

In terms of housing, for someone moving back to the province on a posting, or who has just left and, therefore, is transitioning, how do they achieve enough points to allow them to access the housing that they need if they are going into provided housing from the council or the Housing Executive here in Northern Ireland?

Those two areas are ones in relation to existing, serving members and those who are just leaving. I have some other observations around transition, and perhaps that will come up later on in the conversation, but hopefully that is helpful.

Susie Hamilton: I have heard from service families, and the big issues that have come up there have been around childcare. In Moray and the Helensburgh area, there are real shortages of childcare, which limits spousal employment. These days, it really is a financial imperative for families to have two working partners.

Also, as has already been alluded to, assessments of children with additional support needs—ASN—in Scotland, and quite often with mobile families, do not even get done by the time that they are moving on again. The children are not getting the support that they need, and charities are stepping in to fund private assessments to try to speed that up.

We have already mentioned transition a couple of times. That is still very patchy. In areas such as life skills, which is part of the new transition approach and is supposed to be incorporated into service life in terms of more awareness about housing and finances, we are not really seeing the evidence of that. I do not really see that that is being measured either in terms of what life skills are being delivered, and their effectiveness. I certainly hear from providers that people are leaving the armed forces without really understanding housing very well, without having made provision, and without really understanding their pension or their finances. I am sure that that is solvable, and that would really also help.

Q62            Alex Baker: Thank you very much for those reflections. It is really useful and correlates very much with a lot of the evidence that we have had in this inquiry so far. Bringing you back to veterans now, how could support for veterans be made more consistent across the whole of the United Kingdom?

David Johnstone: Just following on from what Susie said there, it is absolutely right that transition is an area that could be improved and would have a significant impact on various challenges that come after that, specifically around perhaps staying in touch with veterans just after they have left. Certainly I have had many examples of people who, particularly if they have served only for a couple of years, literally have a couple of hours of an interview and are then out of the system, on their own.

It might be three, five or 10 years down the line when there is perhaps a mental health challenge, which then has to be dealt with by the system. Resources and time are then put into trying to fix a broken veteran, whereas, if we had had a better transition period in terms of staying in touch with that veteran, it may alleviate and prevent some further challenges that happen down the line. If I were to summarise that, prevention is perhaps better than cure. There is so much focus on the cure of broken veterans, but, through transition, let us see if we can stop veterans becoming more broken.

Q63            Alex Baker: Just to come back to you on that point, how do you deliver transition consistently? How would you do it if you were in charge of doing that?

David Johnstone: There is certainly a frustration among veterans that, when they do leave that transition, there are so many different points of contact, telephone numbers and statutory bodies. They are almost confused in terms of where to go. I am not sure how my colleagues Susie and James feel about this, but one thing that might help would be an initial point of contact for a veteran as they are leaving, or after they have just left, that they could meet or whose phone number they could have. It would take away the confusion, and streamline the delivery of services.

James Phillips: I agree that a single point of contact is important. The veteran space and the transition space is very cluttered and complicated. As commissioners, we were discussing that only this morning. There are new initiatives, one of which was announced by Minister Carns yesterday, which supports other initiatives that are in place.

We have a new provider of a career transitions programme at the moment, after having had the same contractor providing it for 10 years or so. We are looking to see how that is bedding in. There is evidence from veterans on the ground that there are some teething problems with that in terms of support. There is always a push to move transition further to the left, but you are then putting the onus on the serving military to provide that education and transition, when they have busy and heated programmes anyway, and their focus should be on delivery of military effect.

Again, it is that problem of where the responsibilities lie and fall, and how you take a young lance corporal who is looking at their career progression, wants to go and do their career courses and is interested in operations and training, and tell them that they have to sit in a lecture on housing or financial planning when they are not even thinking about leaving the armed forces. Maybe the next day, they might badly break their leg and be on a journey out of the armed forces. It is very difficult.

We tend to forget the veteran and the individual in these pathways. David spoke about one veteran who would be five or six years down the line. Veterans are not the easiest people to trace, to keep track of and to log. Some of them are leading chaotic lives by that stage, and it is very difficult to find them and to provide them the services that they require. It tends to be when they are in crisis that we notice that they are there and they ask for help.

Susie Hamilton: At this point, I would like to emphasise that most veterans thrive and do really well, and are contributing to society. We are talking about the support and services for a minority of veterans. There is no real mechanism for public bodies to be held accountable for their covenant actions. There is no real reporting or scrutiny. If we want to have consistent services, a mechanism to have accountability that can be scrutinised for all public bodies would be really helpful in bringing in that consistency.

Q64            Ian Roome: You have answered a lot of the question on transition that I was going to ask, but what specifically would you like to see in the covenant, given that the Armed Forces Minister has said that he wants to put it fully into law? What would you want to see in the new, fully into law covenant, if you like, that would help specifically place a duty on organisations to help serving personnel into civilian life when they leave?

James Phillips: We have due regard in areas such as housing, health, training and education, but that is untested. What does that due regard mean? There is a low level of proof on that. Expanding that due regard function is not enough in itself, and there should be a further stage that brings in the rule of law and gives more weight to the covenant.

You have here three commissioners who are not legislative. I have no real teeth. I have the power of personality in the name of commissioner to allow me to engage with public bodies and to advocate on behalf of veterans, but I do not have any legal clout to that. If I write to the public body, they do not have to respond. They do it out of the normal Freedom of Information Act processes.

I do not have any real teeth, so I would ask that the commissioners were brought into that and were given more of a role in holding people to account. I would ask that England had a veterans commissioner. The Government are looking at bringing in an armed forces commissioner, but that is not to look after veterans, so there is no one doing our jobs for England.

I would argue that you probably need four to cover England and to be able to do it in the way that we are able to do it for our nations, but there is no veterans commissioner on the horizon. There was one with the last Government. That has been conflated with the armed forces commissioner, but their role does not deal with veterans, so veterans in England do not have that same sort of support that our veterans might enjoy from our positions. I am sure that the others will cover very similar areas.

Susie Hamilton: As I have just referred to, bodies respond to what they are measured on, so there needs to be a formal measurement process and accountability for covenant responsibilities. It would also be helpful to have national standards. The guidance provided by the MOD is helpful and gives good examples, but the Veterans First Point example that I used is one of the examples in the guidance, and yet a health board is closing theirs, so that is not really very effective.

We have very clear national standards in lots of other areas, such as health and social care. Having national standards that both the veteran community and the providers can understand, and that can be used by the existing ombudsmen, such as the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman—they can be referred to them—will help to really embed awareness of the covenant and following that due regard, so that there is real use of that right down to the public-facing level for our veterans.

David Johnstone: There are two areas that I will mention briefly. One is financial services. There could be more in the covenant to understand the mobility and gaps in credit history that veterans and their families experience. My personal background in business is in property, and I know that some veterans struggle to meet mortgage requirements in terms of the analysis of their suitability for a mortgage. Perhaps there could be something included that ensures that financial institutions address that disparity when it comes to members of the armed forces applying for mortgages.

The other thing that I will mention is justice. There could well be a better joining up of veterans who are in the criminal justice system, so that they can identify and are better connected with support mechanisms. That is something that could also be included. They are just two points that I can think of.

Q65            Ian Roome: Within your work, how involved are you with the third sector and charities? How important are they within the transition period of leaving the forces to becoming a veteran? What would you say about the third sector and its involvement?

Susie Hamilton: I will provide my somewhat biased views. I have come from working in the veterans third sector for quite a long period of time. The third-sector providers are probably essential. They are the experts in a lot of these areas, and can also provide a value-added service. They are numerous, which can cause difficulties, because it is difficult for veterans and families to navigate what the correct approach is. The key to that is to have really close collaboration and working in consortia. One that James referred to earlier is the VPPP. We also have Unforgotten Forces in Scotland, which is a consortium for older veterans working together that can make referrals to other organisations.

The third sector should not be replacing statutory provision. That is absolutely essential. Health and housing are particular areas that the state should provide, particularly for somebody who has suffered illness or injury as a result of their service. If the state breaks them, the state should fix them, and that should not be done or replaced by a charitable service.

However, charities are sometimes the best placed to carry out these services. Veterans trust the third sector far more than they may trust other statutory provision. Also, the quality can often be much higher. From my experience of homeless services for veterans, I know that the ones provided by the third sector do not look anything like a council-provided homeless shelter. They are completely different things, and the outcomes are probably much better for veterans in the charitable ones.

It is essential that they work together, and we have seen good examples of statutory funding for charities that are then carrying out the delivery. That is a good model that can work, as long as there is a clear path for veterans to access it.

Ian Roome: You have answered that for your colleagues as well. I know that we are short for time, and that was a really good answer. I do know that they do valuable work.

Q66            Mike Martin: Thank you all very much for coming and for your answers. I am interested in the private sector. You have painted a picture of extreme variability between different devolved nations and different service providers in the Government sector. In the private sector, one imagines that that must be even more extreme. Could you give me a couple of examples of the good and the bad in terms of what you have seen with service personnel and veterans, and their interactions with the private sector? Specifically, the Government are about to rewrite some of the law in this area. Are there bits that should form that legislation? Are there duties that we should impose on the private sector in order to make sure that some of that variability in the private sector is reduced and that there is a more standard response to the armed forces covenant from the private sector?

David Johnstone: If I may just ask, are you referring to the private sector in terms of business as opposed to the third-sector charities?

Mike Martin: Yes.

David Johnstone: I do not want to keep highlighting the differences in Northern Ireland, because there are many similarities. Again, I agree with Susie that there are many veterans who leave the armed forces and go on to make a tremendous contribution to society. It is exactly the same in Northern Ireland.

One challenge that we do have is that, while we have around 40 organisations that have signed up to the armed forces covenant, many do not want to make that public. Therefore, it is a private hand in the air to support what the armed forces covenant stands for, but there is no public championing of that. That in itself leads to an environment where veterans do not feel that they are being recognised when it comes to engaging with the private sector.

You also have the overarching legacy issue, and I would like to just comment on that before the session finishes, if there is not a question on it directly. Some people who have served, when they go to the private sector, do not want to acknowledge their service, just for security concerns in some cases. Probably like most places in the UK, some private companies are very pro veterans and very happy to involve them and to recognise the skills and the experience that they bring, but there are others that either are not aware or are very opposed to what veterans stand for in Northern Ireland.

Q67            Mike Martin: David, is there anything that the Government can do when re-legislating in that area, or is Northern Ireland in particular just a special case, for obvious reasons?

David Johnstone: That is a really good question. The passage of time will help, but I do have to say that the recent legacy cases have not helped the overall environment for veterans. I would not be doing my job as a veterans commissioner if I did not highlight to the inquiry today that, when we are talking about health and education, and the private sector, some veterans—not just in Northern Ireland, but in GB—are not really concerned about that currently. They are concerned about whether they are going to be brought back to court 30, 40 or 50 years later. Even though they operated under military law and rules of engagement, and were sent there by the Government, they now find themselves looking down the barrel of a potential prosecution for murder. That, for many veterans, is very much in their mind, more so than worrying about the private sector and things such as that.

James Phillips: Like many things, it is the cluttered battle space that we work in. There are already MOD organisations out there. The RFCA and Defence Relationship Management, which is part of the RFCA, work with the private sector, for two reasons. One is for reservists’ release and enabling them to support reservists. The other is for employment, and they run the employment recognition scheme, with bronze, silver and gold, and the covenant signings. They are very active across Wales and England, although I cannot speak for the other two devolved nations.

We have these things in force, and these organisations are doing it, but then we have initiatives such as Op PROSPER, with Mission Community, which was funded with £2 million to deliver something very similar. These initiatives and their effect need to be co-ordinated to maximise them and deliver the best for our people.

Q68            Mike Martin: Is there any piece of legislation? Is there a quick fix? Is it right to impose a duty on the private sector to make sure that the contributions of our service personnel and veterans are recognised? It is a genuinely open question.

James Phillips: It is a good question. I am not a legislator.

Q69            Mike Martin: What about based on your experience of what you have seen in terms of interactions between service personnel or veterans and the private sector?

James Phillips: That is difficult to do with the private sector. We go probably as far as we do with the RSCA and Defence Relationship Management. What we do not do is leverage those companies that have signed up. There are over 500 of them across Wales, some of which are public bodies as well. They fill out the tick sheet. They achieve a certain standard to become a gold member of the employment recognition scheme, but do we then harness and use that and say, ‘You are a gold member. If you want to keep your gold membership, there are certain things that you have to do’? I am not sure that we do that.

Mike Martin: That is interesting. Thank you very much.

Susie Hamilton: I agree with James. The employment recognition scheme can be really effective. Particularly the gold award holders need to be held more strongly to account, because they are supposed to be real champions in their areas.

The touch points for veterans are employment and financial services. We have talked about financial services. There is definitely scope to expand the covenant to cover that and to remove disadvantage.

On employment, it is a bit trickier, but it is certainly about raising awareness, particularly of small and medium sized enterprises, because a lot of the big employers now really do understand the benefits of employing veterans. Spousal employment would be the big one for me, because spouses’ CVs look very different to normal ones, shall we say.

There should certainly be something to force employers to look beyond that strange CV and consider employing armed forces spouses, as well as perhaps more flexible or hybrid employment for them. That is a huge resource of talent that is definitely underused, because of perceptions and because of these difficulties.

Mike Martin: Thank you. That is a great point.

Q70            Mr Bailey: Looking now at the future of the covenant, should the legal duty be extended to cover the devolved Administrations? Could you elaborate perhaps on the seams between the nations—the seams of the UK—and how those impact veterans when choosing where to retire to?

James Phillips: If you are talking about bringing in due regard, I come back to the question of what due regard means. Where are you setting that bar for due regard? It depends on how high you set that bar as to how effective due regard is. I am not aware of any case where that due regard has been tested yet, certainly not in Wales. It may have been in some other part of the United Kingdom. You probably need to be stricter in terms of applying that due regard and defining what it means legally.

In Wales, it is as if the Welsh Government and local government are legally bound by the covenant. They are pretty compliant. What we saw when due regard came in was a forcing function in those areas of housing, education and health. Those bodies refreshed their understanding of and training in the covenant, so it was useful in that regard. I suspect that, by doing that across the devolved nations, it would ensure that they did a bit of housekeeping and looked at making sure that their application of due regard for the covenant was comprehensive. It would be useful in that function, but the pivotal point is what bar you set for due regard to make sure that people are achieving the required standard.

David Johnstone: In an ideal world, there should be a greater onus on the devolved Administrations to implement and show that due regard that James has just mentioned, particularly in Northern Ireland, where housing and health are devolved matters. Therefore, it would be very helpful if the devolved Administration was required to implement the armed forces covenant.

Again, I do not need to highlight the fact that we are not there yet in Northern Ireland, and it does create a difficulty in terms of the whole conversation around the devolved Assembly. In an ideal world, the devolved Administration should be put under more pressure to implement, with some mechanisms, if they do not, to impose a penalty. If they do not, how can services still be delivered to veterans? They would be the two points that I would make on that.

Susie Hamilton: I broadly agree with my colleagues. The current Scottish Administration has been trying to do things for veterans. It is not about trying to force them to change, but about having more resources. If there is legal accountability, that might help devolved Administrations set aside centrally more resources, because they will have more legal duty to do that. A lot of the time, it is resources that are preventing real change and improvement in some of these services. It might be helpful for the Governments to have that.

Also, there are big differences particularly between England and Scotland, but also Scotland and Wales. There are those cross-border differences. Op COURAGE and Op NOVA do not exist in Scotland. We do not have AFLOs such as those that exist in Wales. Having all of those different approaches is confusing and difficult for veterans when it comes to choosing where they want to live, so that could help.

Q71            Mr Bailey: Just to pick up on your point, David, you identified that there should perhaps be certain extensions of the covenant if it was to cover legal duty. You mentioned housing. Can I also ask for a view on social care from any of you, and maybe any other areas that should be considered?

James Phillips: Social care is a huge area of concern now. Resources in local authorities are really challenging. Certainly in Wales, 50% of our veteran population are over 65, and 20% over 85. Social care for older veterans, but also for families in crisis or in need, is an area where we should look at covenant extension. It is an area that is lacking at the moment and an area where we see real need in terms of the veteran population that are in crisis.

As Susie alluded to earlier, 90% of veterans transition and are effective members of our society, as we see here, but it is that minority who are in crisis and really do rely on those services. Their lifestyle while they have been serving means that it is difficult to understand their circumstances, and they do not necessarily have that history that a lot of social services like to see to prove their need.

Susie Hamilton: In a lot of areas of social care, there is not really clear evidence of a difference in need between the veteran community and the civilian population, so I am not sure how much benefit would be gained by legislating for that. There may be in more specific areas, such as supported housing, and possibly separated families or in the domestic violence sphere, although we are, again, talking about quite small numbers, and I am not sure that it is always necessary to have a specific provision. Older veterans are an ageing population, and their needs are very similar to the older population of our country.

Mr Bailey: I would just note, as I hand back to you, Chair, that there is no representative of the largest populations within our country, in London and Birmingham.

Chair: Thank you very much. I am very grateful to your good selves for taking time out to give evidence to our inquiry on the armed forces covenant. I will now briefly suspend the session in order to set up for our second panel.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Mike Callaghan, Lis Burnett, Kate Davies and Gillian Ford.

Chair: I call to order today’s hearing on the Defence Committee’s inquiry into the armed forces covenant. It is a pleasure to warmly welcome our four guests who will be giving evidence today. First of all, Councillor Lis Burnett is the presiding member of the Welsh Local Government Association and is participating virtually. It is also wonderful to welcome within the Committee Room Mike Callaghan, who is the policy manager of the communities team at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Kate Davies is director for health and justice for the armed forces and sexual assault services commissioning at NHS England. We also have with us Councillor Gillian Ford, deputy chair of the Community Wellbeing Board at the Local Government Association. Thank you so much for taking time out to give evidence to the Defence Committee.

Q72            Alex Baker: The reason we are doing this inquiry is because this Government are committed to putting the covenant into law. There is already a legal duty around the covenant as it stands. We are really interested in what your experiences have been of delivering the legal duty under the existing covenant. We would be really interested in you touching on the guidance given from central Government to your organisation, and the kind of training that your organisations do for frontline staff.

Mike Callaghan: First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity to come here this morning on behalf of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—COSLA—to provide evidence at this session.

Reflecting upon the armed forces covenant, as many of you will know, it has been delivered on a voluntary basis in Scotland since 2011. It has also been delivered in a very positive way by all our member councils across Scotland in terms of its wider implementation, particularly housing, education, and health and wellbeing-related services.

We obviously now have the statutory underpinning with regard to the armed forces covenant, and that work continues to be built upon. The guidance that was provided by the MOD in conjunction with central Government was very useful. I am glad to say it highlighted some good practice in Scotland as part of it, which was helpful.

In terms of actual experience of the armed forces covenant, there is some really excellent work going on across Scottish local authorities, particularly in some of the areas where we have a large presence of armed forces communities and families. For example, in Moray Council we have an excellent initiative that supports the children of armed forces services personnel, academically and socially, which is really important for their transition, particularly if they have moved from somewhere else in the UK into the Scottish education system. Argyll and Bute similarly has a service pupil adviser to support young people, as well as armed forces ambassadors in schools. In Highland Council we also have very proactive support from our military liaison group on education and housing awareness training.

Going to the central belt of Scotland, South Lanarkshire near Glasgow has a strong commitment to the armed forces covenant. They launched a new strategy last year and an oversight group for that. They do a lot of really good, positive initiatives, such as guaranteed job interviews for veterans. There is a lot of good practice going on in Scotland, but, having said that, there is always room for improvement. We always look to build upon good practice.

Kate Davies: Hello, everybody. It is nice to be here. I am answering this from an NHS England and health perspective. It is a really good question, because the Health and Social Care Act back in 2012 was actually quite a pivotal point, requiring the NHS to look at how we were working with our armed forces community. That was when I came into post. NHS England looked at how, as a new body, it was setting up for the advantage of the armed forces community in a way that we were looking at serving personnel, veterans, reservists and their families.

That was quite a key moment for us to then really look at what those mechanisms were to make that part of a central governance and guiding perspective. That included the NHS constitution, looking at contracts and what that means for particularly key contracts with the GMC—the General Medical Council—and our services across the generic NHS.

One of the things that was really a learning point was that there was not a lot of understanding of what the armed forces covenant meant on the ground. There was not a lot of understanding of what that meant within legislation to the NHS as a whole. What we were finding, particularly through working with lived experience, working with our military colleagues and working with clinicians, is that we actually did need to develop what were very targeted, very important services to not only have what was then the first national partnership agreement with the military community for the MOD, Defence Medical Services and NHS England, but also then standing up and commissioning particular services, which I am sure we will come on to later, that are particularly there for reservists serving and their families. It is very important to distinguish that within the legislation.

It is also about what that meant for the civilian element of the armed forces community, for veterans and their families. I know previous devolved Administration commissions have discussed this. It was about understanding what that guidance meant on the ground when there was confusion and concerns. Where we went, as well as central Government, was very much to lived experience. How did that feel? How did it work? What could we do better? We have certainly come a long way.

The question also about employment, and particularly training, is really key. At the moment we are 42 integrated care boards and integrated care systems, alongside local authorities and other bodies, very much on a local level. We are now standing up a new armed forces framework for NHS England, particularly to look at training and education, but a very clear and precise approach across the system, so that we can drive out inconsistencies, but so we can also particularly promote and build on that good practice. That is an overview, but I am very happy to give a lot of detail on some of those actuals.

Gillian Ford: I am going to start by contextualising the financial position that councils are actually in. We are facing a funding deficit of £1.9 billion, rising to £8.4 billion by the end of the phase 2 spending review. My own authority has just received an £88 million capitalisation directive from Government, which would otherwise require a 66% increase in council tax. That is to fill the gap between income and increased demand.

Councils are absolutely dedicated to supporting armed forces communities through the covenant, and we feel that that is best integrated into local networks and supported by strategic partnerships. In fact, in Havering, we are just signing the armed forces covenant with our NEL ICB. That is going to be in June, when we have our Armed Forces Day, and that is going to be with all partners. The council is going to re‑sign. That is something positive that councils are doing. We have also noticed that officers provide that flexible support with experience. We are fortunate to have somebody from the armed forces as that expert within our team.

Councils frequently co-ordinate with local charities, GPs and public agencies to maintain consistent engagement. They report that strong local partnerships enhance visibility and accessibility, enabling those veterans to get the support that they need. Some councils are also using digital platforms and regional forums to engage and to bridge that communication gap and standardise the messaging.

However, councils consistently face challenges with inconsistent statutory guidance, and little to no top-down leadership and support from central Government Departments, which affects the covenant. We are not getting the information from MHCLG, DFE, et cetera. It is about that joined-up working and that feeding through. This then leads to different interpretations and inconsistent applications across the country, and creates geographical disparities. Councils request clear and national guidelines so that we can have that standardised approach to the covenant duties and reduce that ambiguity.

To overcome those inconsistencies, councils currently participate in regional forums and partnership boards, and they share information on the statutory guidance, where they see that working and the effective practices. It is that collaborative approach that enhances those consistencies. Councils emphasise that open communication and knowledge sharing are crucial for effective covenant delivery, and we welcome Government support in getting that messaging out.

Lis Burnett: Our experience actually mirrors a lot of the experiences you have already heard of here. One thing that I would like to spend my small amount of time on is the essential interaction between local government and our armed forces and veterans. As was said in the earlier session, most are absolutely fine when they leave the armed forces, so you need specialised care for those people that are not okay.

Colonel Phillips, our veterans commissioner who spoke earlier, mentioned the armed forces liaison officers, and in Wales they are absolutely crucial. They are people with high levels of social and human capital, who not only advocate for armed forces in terms of training within local government, but they act as advocates and signposting mechanisms to services to make those services work.

In a situation where we are all short of funding at the moment, those human dialogues can make quite a difference to the outcomes of individuals. They work with individuals, they work with organisations, but they also work within communities. The types of experiences that we see our armed forces liaison officers have is that they might collaborate with other authorities in the region to get more regional activities. That has happened in Caerphilly, and I know that Caerphilly’s AFLO works with ours.

In Denbighshire they have an employability service. Neath Port Talbot actually has Bulldogs Boxing & Community Activities, and that is a whole range of physical activities. In Pembrokeshire they have community galleries, and all sorts of things that are going on there. There is also a supporting service children in education programme that goes right the way across Wales, which meets on a regular basis and shares information.

Just to end this part, we talk about our armed forces community as needing support. Yes, there are times they do, but I would also like to mention the hugely positive benefit that we have by having armed force communities in Wales. They bring a huge amount of talent and a huge amount of support. If I just look at some of the Afghan resettlement schemes that have currently been supported locally in my local authority, veterans in our communities have been phenomenal in providing a welcome to the Afghan refugees that have come into our country. I cannot speak highly enough of them and give sufficient thanks to them for their participation.

Q73            Michelle Scrogham: We have heard that the covenant is being delivered very differently from one area to the next, whether it is within local authorities or trusts. We are trying to get to the bottom of the reason for that. Do you think there are any examples where the covenant is being delivered particularly well that could be emulated across the rest of the country? Where it is not doing very well, what are the reasons behind that? What mechanisms do you have for evaluating success and spreading good practice within your organisations?

Lis Burnett: The biggest challenge that we face is actually identifying veterans in order to support them. For us, one of the big steps forward has been to include a question on whether someone has served in the armed forces in the 2021 census. That actually gives us an idea of the size of the community within Wales and within local government areas.

Gillian Ford: There is effective sharing of good practice at the national level. We have regional forums and we also have the LGA Armed Forces Covenant Network. These networks enable councils to exchange effective practices, learn from the challenges, and adapt solutions to local contexts. Council participating in the joint partnership boards co‑ordinate shared actions and aligned services delivery strategies. However, councils report that access to these networks is fragmented and inconsistent, which leads to that fragmented knowledge transfer where the partnerships are less established.

Councils consistently request better national co-ordination of those frameworks, groupings and platforms, so that we can get more sharing of best practice and effective best practice. The LGA Armed Forces Covenant Network provides an invaluable platform for councils to connect, but further support is needed to ensure councils are aware of this. Again, that comes down to the communications and getting those messages out.

In relation to delivering the measuring of success, councils use accountability by using community feedback. We have focus groups and partnership evaluations to measure those successes. They prioritise lived experience over rigid metrics. However, most councils lack formal performance frameworks. Again, that can be leading to those inconsistencies across the piece and the measurement of accountability. Without the standardised metrics, comparisons between regions are unreliable because you have nothing to benchmark against. Some councils are developing performance indicators linked to strategic outcomes using data analytics to track service usage and target improvements.

Some councils are deliberately avoiding target-based metrics, arguing that they distort priorities and incentivise superficial successes. Instead, they focus on qualitative feedback to maintain flexibility and responsiveness. Councils advocate for balanced evaluation frameworks that actually include both quantitative and qualitative measures.

Kate Davies: I come from a slightly different perspective because of the work that we are doing across NHS England. I am the director of a single armed forces team across the whole of NHS England. It is obviously not there to do the job of the whole of the needs across the NHS, but it is there because of that question. There are things that we should absolutely do once and then do at scale in order to support our armed forces community and give that commitment through the covenant, but also get to what is really important: those services and that delivery on the ground.

Building on that good practice, I know you have heard this term within your Committee a lot, but I am going to be a little bit cheeky, because the “Op” word originally came from NHS England. It was the very first service, which was Op COURAGE, which was actually named by lived-experience men and women in the veterans community to deliver the first nationwide mental health service, including complex PTSD and transition and crisis intervention for our veterans and their families. It was also connected with the way that we look at mental health services, primary care, secondary care services across families and also serving personnel. It was really important to look at it as a whole.

Also within resources, which I know is an ongoing issue, it is to use those resources well and to fund mental health services at scale, but also Op RESTORE, which is the physical trauma service connected with another 26 clinical networks around trauma in acute trusts. Op NOVA is a criminal justice system service, which again is England-wide, both pre and post custody, but also now in prisons for the first time. That is developing at scale.

Ultimately, what you also want at the same time as the targeted elements is what you can develop across a systems approach. As part of that, we then brought in the GP accreditation requirement across all primary care clinical networks. We are at around 99% of that. It has taken a number of years to get to that point. It is the same with the Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance armed in acute trusts.

It is then really about how you get that two-pronged attack, about absolutely targeting the services and the good delivery, as well as evidencing them at scale. Since its conception in 2017, 30,000 people have gone through Op COURAGE. It is also about how you ensure you build that out on a local level, whether that is in Havering, Bristol, Blackpool or London.

It is really important we look at what that means for women, and what that means for black and Asian men and women, particularly the Gurkha community, and some of the pathways that we have with different ages and different conflicts. It is knowing that specialism, but knowing it within a health community, within an NHS community, but also in collaboration with the voluntary sector.

The other element around good practice is commissioning those in partnership, and a requirement to do that with the voluntary sector. For example, Op COURAGE is a key partner in Walking With The Wounded and Combat Stress. Op RESTORE is the same with a number of charitable and lived experience co-production elements.

I could go on about this for a long time. I know there is limited time and there are colleagues who need the time as well, but we started in a very low place. We started in a very inconsistent place. We have got to a pretty solid NHS England national need and requirement, alongside the devolved Administrations, because of the UK population and the military. It is also about evidencing it and making sure that people know where there are gaps, where it works and where it does not. That is absolutely important.

Women and girls at the moment are absolutely our priority, particularly around some of the issues that we have around sexual violence and domestic violence, but not that alone. It is about the brilliant women who serve and the brilliant women who also need the right elements around the menopause. It is the same for men and for different communities.

Yes, do it at scale. Resource it, fund it and make quite sure you have those policies and criteria, but then make quite sure you have the mechanisms through the covenant to understand how that comes and is supported on a local basis. It does not matter whether you have many hundreds of thousands, which you may have in Plymouth, or smaller numbers in a different conurbation. It needs to be equal and consistent. That is what we are driving in the NHS. We are certainly not all the way there, but we certainly have a lot more than we had a few years ago.

Mike Callaghan: Just to build upon the points that Councillor Ford has made on resources and some of the points that Kate has made, in my first contribution I mentioned some of what we regard as good practice in some of the local authorities in Scotland, particularly in education and housing, in areas such as Moray Council, Argyll and Bute Council and Highland Council.

That has been supported by the various networks that we have in Scotland. For education, for example, we have the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, which publishes guidance notes. Those guidance notes highlight examples of good practice as well as how children and families can be supported as part of the transition when moving into Scotland or moving to other locations. That is helpful in that respect.

In terms of measuring success, COSLA captures and promotes good practice case studies through its network, through ALACHO, which represents chief housing officers in Scotland, and through other networks.

Regarding measuring and monitoring progress, resources are an impediment across Scottish local government, similar to Wales and England. That is always a significant challenge to promoting the armed forces covenant and doing the work that we wish to do to support these communities.

Q74            Michelle Scrogham: Would it be more efficient if this were led centrally, then, and you were not reinventing the wheel in every single authority?

Mike Callaghan: It is an interesting question. Politically, on the basis that the Scottish Government is a devolved Administration, that would be a matter for the UK Government and Scottish Government. If you were looking at a wider commitment to the armed forces covenant and more resources coming to Scottish, Welsh and English local government, that would be an intuitive outcome to help support the roll-out and implementation of the armed forces covenant across the UK. You have to have the commitment and buy-in to do that.

The point that is being made is about the awareness of the armed forces covenant. There is a lack of awareness of it. There are also sometimes misunderstandings of it. Those expectations have to be met or managed in respect of exactly what it is. If it were to go wider and the UK Government or the devolved Administrations were to enshrine it in legislation, you would have to manage expectations on that as well. Resources would have to be a part of that.

Gillian Ford: Yes, it needs a standardised structure. However, delivery must still be retained at that local level because they know their communities; they know the demographics, et cetera.

Q75            Michelle Scrogham: It would be the framework.

Gillian Ford: It is just the framework and the funding that comes along with it.

Q76            Mr Bailey: A lot of the issues that we received evidence about were as a result of the mobile nature of service life for both service personnel and for their families, the migratory nature of that role, and the recognition that, when you join the military, you leave a whole load of systems and fail to exist in some. When you exit the military, there are problems over those seams.

Just to give you an example from some of the evidence that we have received, we have received examples related to dentistry and access to dental health. Some service personnel talk about their families registering at practices when they start their service career and continually driving them back to those places, taking leave and time off their own work or school just to maintain that care. With the NHS, we know you just do not exist there in the military. During the pandemic, there was an issue with service people being able to access greater care. In other systems, such as local authority systems, you just do not exist. Your arrival is a hard arrival, like a migrant. What could be done to address these challenges?

Kate Davies: One of the things that is really important is the issues around the transition of serving to non-serving, but it is also about families and serving personnel who move around the country probably proportionally more than any other employment element.

One of the things that has been important in NHS England, in working with that constant dilemma, is setting up a single point of contact, which we have found to be essential. We have a single point of contact service. It is quite small, but it is there to help individual families, individual personnel and veterans navigate through the system and to understand what it means when they are moving and what it means when the armed forces covenant is not understood. It is quite confusing. It might be to do with generic services and the generic way that a service is accessed or you might be at a disadvantage because you are moving through the system.

Dentistry is a really important one. It comes up a lot. As you are aware, Defence Medical Services provides the dentistry for not all but a majority of serving personnel. There is quite a lot of difference. There are a lot of pressures within the dentistry system and the world of NHS dentists. I know my colleagues in the broader NHS have given further evidence around how we are supporting dentistry at the moment, but, particularly for children and families, we have done a lot of work to make quite sure that, if people do move around, they can have consistent care. That might be dentistry, but it could also be to do with learning disabilities, neurodiversity and so on and so forth. That is another big area.

Q77            Mr Bailey: HCPs also do not transition borders.

Kate Davies: Yes, exactly. I really welcome this Committee’s inquiry because this is something where the armed forces covenant can really make a difference. If you do not have that independent co-ordinator—I have talked about how that works in Wales or within the single point of contact—you find out too late how the system can really help and support you. I will leave it there because I know other colleagues will bring that in.

Q78            Mr Bailey: Before I let you go, how do you think your work could be shared or used as good practice elsewhere?

Kate Davies: I was in a roundtable only yesterday as part of the 10-year plan engagement with veterans’ communities, serving personnel and the voluntary sector in the Department of Health with one of the Ministers. We were hearing that there was difference in different areas of the country, but there was also difference in the devolved Administrations. That difference goes both ways. It is incredibly frustrating for individuals to have to keep repeating that.

The digital element is really important. The work that we have done around read codes and digital accessibility—“Have you ever served? Are you serving? Do you have a family member who is serving?”—is so important. We have to be more proactive at asking the question. That is the responsibility of the public sector, the independent sector and Government Departments. That is where we can do more, as well as building on what really works and duplicating it pretty quickly.

Mr Bailey: Mike, you were nodding a lot.

Mike Callaghan: Yes, some good points were made there that were more solutions-focused. From a Scottish perspective, there are a lot of challenges for service families moving around, particularly those moving from England to Scotland. There are differences and challenges in accessing services caused by frequent relocations.

I mentioned some of the ways that some local authority services in Scotland, such as education, serve as people advisers and ambassadors in some local authorities, particularly those authorities that have high populations of armed forces military service families.

It is about understanding all the challenges involved. For example, if a family is relocating to Scotland, they need to understand the differences in the Scottish education system. It is very different to the English system. There are different qualifications, a different curriculum and even different school holidays. It feels and looks a lot different. That can be quite disruptive for children moving around the country. They need that support to be in place.

Some of our local authorities have that, but there are a lot of wider challenges, such as employment, housing for families relocating, as well as mental health and wellbeing. We need to have a whole package of services to help respond for these families and the challenges that they encounter. Kate has mentioned one or two ways that there could be potential solutions. We could have a more joined-up approach right across the UK to support and assist families in those positions.

Q79            Mr Bailey: In the past, our military medical provision used to be uniform and separate to the provision that was provided by the state so that it did not apply those pressures unduly. Lis and Gillian, I suppose you would want similar supplementing, in being able to support local services or similar services and those pressures that come with migration.

Gillian Ford: Yes. One of the challenges that we hear about on a regular basis is around the conflicting statutory regulations and the expectations around those priorities. We have the covenant duties, but we also have priorities for people with disabilities, domestic abuse and special educational needs. It becomes a conflict as to which one takes priority, which can be a challenge.

We also have councils that find inconsistent policies between neighbouring authorities. We try to deal with that by having co-ordination and collaboration with neighbouring authorities and schools so we get a smoother transition for families.

Some councils are providing digital resources. My colleague here mentioned digital. We have community ambassadors and dedicated armed forces officers that support those families that are transitioning into an area. The inconsistent communication channels and information-sharing gaps, which I mentioned earlier, can be a problem. There needs to be some sort of system and network where there is greater access to that information.

Lis Burnett: Helping people to find the relevant information is absolutely crucial. As I said, we have the armed force liaison officers. There was a review recently about whether or not they should be centralised. The voice came back very strongly from local government to say, “They need to collaborate centrally, but they need to work on a local basis”.

From whichever direction a member of the armed forces, their families or veterans come into it, whether they go to their local British Legion or somebody else who they have seen, they will be signposted to that centralised source of support.

The same thing happens in our local health boards. All local health boards have a dedicated armed forces champion to advocate on behalf of the armed forces community. We try to have a network of contacts so that, wherever somebody accesses that network, they come back into the centre and are provided with the information and the signposting they need to get those services. We are in very challenging times resources-wise, but with those social and human capital links, we can provide those services quite cost-effectively.

Q80            Mike Martin: Just very briefly, I have a question for Lis, Mike and Gillian because it is about education and housing. Have a relax, Kate. We have these legal duties under the covenant at the moment. Gillian, I was struck by your comment about how they conflict with other well-meaning legal duties enshrined in other bits of legislation.

We have an opportunity to tidy up the law. That is one thing that we can do. Is there any other support that local authorities should or could receive from central Government that would make the legal duties under the covenant within education and housing better delivered and closer to what perhaps the people who wrote the covenant envisaged? Is there more support that central Government could give in those regards?

Lis Burnett: That is a difficult one. We were hearing earlier about the competing priorities. With that said, the children of anybody who comes in will be placed as close as possible to where they are based. That goes without saying. We have one-stop shop support in terms of housing. Similarly, anybody who is at risk of being homeless would go straight to the top of the list and be housed as appropriately as possible. Additional resources would make that much easier.

Mike Callaghan: With regards to education and housing, we had a model when we worked with the MOD—we called it a firm-base model—some years back. It was felt that that worked really well in respect of the regular liaison between armed forces representatives, local authority professional associations, COSLA and other partners. We had regular meetings.

Having some kind of support to assist local authorities would be helpful. Having some form of supportive self-evaluation, not audit inspection but something that actively helps local authorities to deliver it, along with resources for those communities, would also potentially be of help and assistance.

Looking at housing, I will maybe give you some context to that. In Scotland, the Scottish Government have declared a housing emergency and 13 of our 32 local authorities have declared local housing emergencies. It is a real challenge for us. With that said, every local authority provides housing and has within its allocations policy specific stipulations for veterans. That is taken on board in respect of allocations. A lot of work is done to support and assist them, but it is a real challenge in Scotland, probably just like it is down here in London as well. That is something quite tangible in respect of where we are with our homelessness figures and the number of people who are in temporary accommodation.

Additional support would obviously be welcome to support and deliver on the housing side of things as well as on education. I am aware that just last week the Office for Veterans’ Affairs has put out a call for applications for funding for veterans. That is a helpful initiative. Further initiatives like that could help achieve our common objective.

Gillian Ford: We need veteran-specific funding. It is not part of some of the funding programmes, such as the health inequalities fund. It is not included as a separate ask. Councils are asking for dedicated funding for the armed forces covenant to ensure consistent service delivery. That will reduce the reliance on volunteers.

We face challenges with fluctuating local budgets. I have identified what my own authority’s financial situation is, and we are not unique. That makes those longer-term planning decisions a lot harder. We believe that having stable funding would provide the security needed to maintain and continue supporting the services.

Q81            Michelle Scrogham: Turning to health services—this is directed specifically to Kate—how can the Government support those services to be more responsive to and aware of the needs of armed forces personnel.

Kate Davies: The awareness across England and the UK—I will repeat what others have said—is markedly better than it has been. We have come a long way, and we need to build on that. You get a lot further when you are building on positives and good practice. We cannot afford to go backwards and we certainly cannot afford not to grow even further.

I do not come from a military background. I know that a lot of the people who sit here often do. I have learned a lot about my family and my connections to the military from doing this job for the last 14 years. I am passionate and professional about health inequalities.

Within the health element, we have managed to look at this as a unique pathway that is sometimes misunderstood. It predominantly has very healthy and very capable men and women who are either in the armed forces or who have become civilians and have to navigate that. When they are poorly, they are often very poorly. We have had to develop the prosthetics panel quite uniquely, as well as mental health services and what that means to do with different needs, particularly when it is complex-related.

That is where you get really good practice and where you get some of those inconsistencies in health. To go back to your question, quite often someone thinks that someone else is going to do it because there is an armed forces element. Too often, someone thinks that the best thing to do is to give somebody a leaflet from a charity. It is great to have armed forces charities as our partners and obviously separately, but ultimately it is also a statutory duty for the public health system to understand and work out what that means as part of the armed forces community.

Going back to the last question, the look at the armed forces covenant legislation in December 2022 was really helpful. Employment, housing and health came in on a stronger footing. That helped integrated care boards focus on this, but we need a more simplistic and user-friendly form for clinicians, GPs, health care services, receptionists and different angles of commissioning. Most importantly, we need it for patients and people with lived experience. It is a requirement and it should be understood. We often call it the tenth protected characteristic as part of the Equality Act 2010. I would really like to see us build on that as part of the good practice that is there.

Otherwise, we do get these patchy elements. I know that is a word that has been used a lot in this Committee. You need legislation. You need statutory requirements that everyone needs to do within health, but you also need a local practice that develops it. That is really key, whether it is urban, semi-urban, rural or via different mechanisms.

Q82            Michelle Scrogham: Would expanding the covenant into social care address some of these issues?

Kate Davies: Yes, it would. It is a really important area. It is essential, but it goes alongside the challenges that social care has per se. I lost my mother in the last year. She was part of that system and it was a struggle for her, and she was not a veteran. We need to think about how we make that absolutely key for people’s individual experiences as well as for the armed forces community.

Q83            Chair: Just very briefly, in terms of the future of the covenant, should the covenant be extended to central Government and the devolved Administrations? Are there any particular areas of service delivery to which the covenant should be extended?

Mike Callaghan: It is a good question. First and foremost, we do not have a political position on whether it should be expanded to central Government. As I said in a previous response, it is something that arguably has a lot of potential, intuitively, to enhance and provide more resources to the armed forces covenant and provide better support for veterans. There is also the potential for better intergovernmental co‑ordination across the different spheres of Government. Implementation would, in principle, likely be better as well.

Above all, the awareness of the armed forces covenant would be greater if you had a wider commitment across different spheres of Government. That is an issue that has been mentioned already in our contributions. That would potentially enhance it. As I say, it is about managing expectations. You have to support it with resources, particularly when you go to the local level where it is delivered, as Councillor Ford said, to local communities.

Kate Davies: It can be strengthened and it can be extended. I would agree that there is a really great opportunity around Government Departments and the way that is understood.

It is also about how people understand and use it better. You could liken it to safeguarding, which is an absolute requirement. You need to understand that when you need to use it, you need to use it, but when you do not need to use it, you still need to understand it. Those are the elements that are really important.

As Lis said earlier, awareness and communication is absolutely essential. We have done a lot in branding the armed forces covenant under the NHS. That has really helped it become more identifiable. We can extend it, but what we need to do is understand it better and communicate it better. That is not so strategic and statutory but more about what it means for you. What does it mean in clear and understood language? We might need some case situations or scenarios from reservists, communities, families of serving personnel and veterans. We need to break it down in a way that people will understand, whether that is in housing or health. That would be incredibly helpful, as well as the extension.

Gillian Ford: Councils agree about the expansion to social care and community services, particularly around mental health and supporting elderly and disabled veterans. As I said earlier, the North East London Integrated Care Board is signing up to this. We are getting that health and social care and community base all working together. We are also looking at Royal Star and Garter’s Veteran Friendly Framework to deliver within the care sector. That is something that can be expanded and incorporated there.

There are some caveats, however. Councils want any expansions to be evidence-based, to ensure they are aligned to community needs and can be delivered sustainably. We need to avoid that one-size-fits-all approach, which we identified earlier. We recommend there is flexibility in how the new duties are implemented at a local level to recognise the different priorities and demand pressures within those different localities.

Lis Burnett: In terms of extending the covenant, that is probably something that we would want to consult on as an organisation, although I recognise the positives that it could bring. Similarly—I am not passing the buck here—it is perhaps not the role of the WLGA to comment on whether or not the UK and Welsh Governments should be subject to the armed forces covenant. However, given the roles that they both play in providing leadership and setting national strategic policy, which then has an impact on how local services operate, there would probably be merit in extending the duty in that way.

In some ways, just to add in, if you do not measure something, it tends not to happen. If you are going to measure something, we do need funding to make sure we have a chance to achieve it.

Chair: Well said. Thank you so much to all of you for giving evidence at our hearing on the armed forces covenant inquiry.