Defence Committee

Oral evidence: Armed Forces Covenant Annual Report 2017, HC 707

Tuesday 16 January 2018

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 16 January 2018.

Watch the meeting

Members present: Dr Julian Lewis (Chair); Leo Docherty; Martin Docherty-Hughes; Mr Mark Francois; Johnny Mercer; Mrs Madeleine Moon; Ruth Smeeth; John Spellar.

Questions 1-110

Witnesses

I: Sara Baade, Chief Executive, Army Families Federation, Group Captain (Rtd) Bill Mahon, Director, RAF Families Federation, and Anna Wright, Director, Naval Families Federation.

II: Charles Byrne, Director General, Royal British Legion, Lieutenant General (Rtd) Sir Andrew Gregory KBE CB, Controller, SSAFA, General (Rtd) Sir John McColl KCB CBE DSO, Chairman, Cobseo, and Mary Moreland, Chairman, War Widows Association.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Sara Baade, Group Captain Mahon and Anna Wright.

Q1                Chair: Good morning and welcome to this session on the Armed Forces Covenant annual report 2017. I would be very grateful if the three members of our panel briefly introduced themselves.

Sara Baade: I am Sara Baade, Chief Executive of the Army Families Federation.

Anna Wright: I am Anna Wright, Chief Executive of the Naval Families Federation.

Group Captain Mahon: Good morning. I am Bill Mahon, Director of the RAF Families Federation.

Chair: Thank you very much for coming. John Spellar will start the questioning.

Q2                John Spellar: May I start by asking what interactions you have had with the new Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board? Do you think two meetings of the board a year is sufficient?

Group Captain Mahon: We have not yet met the board themselves directly. We had a meeting with the Secretary of State, with Tobias Ellwood and with the then First Secretary of State to talk about the sorts of issues that we would like them to take to the main board when it meets. We would have liked to be part of that board, but they have taken the decision not to have external members present. In place of that, the Secretary of State has offered to meet us twice a year prior to the board, which is a level of access that we have not enjoyed in the past, so you might argue that is kind of an offset. It is very welcome. Do we think that twice a year is enough? I think we probably do, yes.

Sara Baade: Echoing what Bill says, it is a bit of a shame that we do not have direct access to Ministers from the other Government Departments, like we had in the past. That does feel like a slight devaluation of the Covenant, but as Bill said, we are really grateful for the access that we have to the Secretary of State.

Q3                John Spellar: That is very welcome. What difference do you think appointing a lead Minister for Covenant and veterans’ issues in relevant Departments will make?

Anna Wright: It is really helpful, in that there is somebody to go to; people have the right to go to that person and they are answerable for those things. We would really welcome somebody to take the lead in the Department for Education, for example. It is a really positive step.

Group Captain Mahon: We do not actually know who they are yet. We have not had the list through, but we are told we will know, hopefully before the next meeting of the main board. I think they have been pinned back a little bit by various reshuffles and so on.

Q4                John Spellar: When is it anticipated that will be?

Group Captain Mahon: We understand that the next meeting of the main board is due in the spring, so we hope we will see something in the next six to eight weeks.

Q5                John Spellar: Chair, perhaps that is something—allocation of responsibilities at an earlier stage—that we need to take up with Secretaries of State. That is helpful. So those are the welcome structural changes. What are the gaps in the Government’s ability to measure delivery, and how do you suggest they should remedy those?

Sara Baade: Measurement of the Covenant is a tricky one, full stop. We still have not seen any meaningful measurement of the Covenant. I must admit that I do not think we have answers about how you should measure it—that is a really tricky one—but it does need to be measured. We need to measure in particular what the Government are doing versus what the wider charity bodies are doing—work that we would have been doing anyway. It is really important to know what is being done specifically under the Covenant and how that is measured, but I do not think we have yet seen anything that is actually doing that measurement.

Anna Wright: It would be helpful to know what the devolved Administrations could offer in terms of metrics. Of course, they have different processes and different ways of delivering the Covenant. We would welcome knowing how they were going to do that.

Group Captain Mahon: I think we would like to see them very much output-based as well, rather than more input-based as perhaps they were in the past.

Q6                Mrs Moon: Would this perhaps be appropriate for one the academic institutions—say a PhD student—to focus on? Would that be something that you would welcome?

Sara Baade: I do not know if it’s a PhD student, or who it is, but it needs to be someone external to look at this in a more neutral way, rather than trying to do it internally.

Q7                Mrs Moon: If not a university, is there a body that would be attractive, that you think, “Gosh, they would be ideal to do it”?

Anna Wright: That is a positive suggestion. I think the Forces in Mind Trust has done a great job of looking at local authorities, and we have “Our Covenant, Our Community”, our report that has been really effective at focusing effort on the Covenant. Now Forces in Mind Trust is funding a look at business and how business is delivering it, so it is possible that the trust might be encouraged to do something to support that research.

Group Captain Mahon: I would agree. I think the important thing is the independence.

Q8                Chair: In an ideal situation, what is each of you hoping to achieve by these two meetings a year?

Anna Wright: Ministerial meetings?

Chair: Yes.

Group Captain Mahon: First and foremost, it is the opportunity for ourselves and our colleagues in the charity sector behind us, to keep Covenant issues in the foreground across Government. I have been in this job five years, and five years ago we did not have the access to other Government Departments in the way and at the level that we enjoy now. I think that is really important.

The other crucial piece is around sustaining the Covenant in the long term. It is not a short piece of business: it is there, we hope, in perpetuity, so to keep it in the Government’s eye is fundamental.

Sara Baade: I would add the personal perspective to that—giving Ministers a real sense of, “This is what it means to be an Army, Navy or RAF family,” and the issues that we are facing by being able to share that with them directly, rather than through diluted reports and everything else. It is important to be able to really be able to get that message across.

Anna Wright: I think that access is really important in terms of our families feeling heard, which is our function.

Q9                Johnny Mercer: What you say is really interesting. We as a Committee, and I individually, have been talking about the MoD marking its own homework. If you mention veterans’ care, Ministers will come out and talk about all this stuff they are pouring into one end of the machine, but in terms of measuring what is coming out of it, there is very little there on how our veterans feel. What do we need to do to close the gap? There is all this stuff going in—there are announcements left, right and centre, and there’s another big company signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant—but for the guys on the ground, it still feels like tokenism. Is that your view, and how do we change it?

Sara Baade: The Armed Forces Covenant has helped us open doors. In the job we are doing, it has certainly helped us raise issues that we probably would not have been able to raise before. I do, however, share your concern: I don’t think it has an awful lot of meaning to our families, as such; they probably don’t feel it on the ground. So there is definitely something around that.

On what we need to do, if we are looking at CRG, we have a tracker; the MoD has real ownership of that, but we need the other Government Departments to also have that ownership. At the moment, we are seeing a flurry of activity right before a CRG—a lot of activity, and then it goes very quiet until the next CRG comes along. There is no real ownership of the Covenant work across Government. At the moment, it sits very much with MoD but not across Government. More ownership across Government Departments would help from that point of view.

Anna Wright: Going back to what we were saying about marking your own homework, I think the independent, external look at what is being delivered would be really helpful. One option might be to take a slice of the Covenant fund and use that to get an independent body to look across Government at how it has been delivered.

Q10            Johnny Mercer: And who could do that—the Forces in Mind Trust?

Anna Wright: I think they could find somebody to do it.

Johnny Mercer: And what about you, Bill? What do you think? Group Captain Mahon: Going back to your point about tokenism, I am not sure it is tokenism per se, but I think the Covenant is only important to a lot of our people when they suddenly realise they need it. The rest of the time they are probably roughly aware of it—it’s in the background until, all of a sudden, they are in a situation where the Covenant can help them and that is when they step forward to the plate.

Q11            Johnny Mercer: Users, or are you talking about companies being able to put on their paperwork that they support the Armed Forces Covenant?

Group Captain Mahon: I am talking about our service personnel and their families who suddenly find themselves in a situation where they are feeling disadvantaged, and their awareness of the Covenant will help them to take that approach, if it can help them out.

As far as companies are concerned and the commercial side of support to the Covenant, I think that is absolutely fundamental as well. There is some really good work going on out there. Look at companies such as KPMG: they have taken 500 service leavers on board and make them part of the reservist set-up. Lots of other companies do a fantastic job. Is there more they could commit to? Absolutely. We think there is a lot that companies—perhaps SMEs on a regional basis could do a lot more. We think there is a lot they could do with the reservist community as well to help support them.

It is important that our people and industry and commercial enterprises out there understand the Covenant, understand what its aims are and understand that it exists so that when they need it they can use it. Does that make sense?

Q12            Johnny Mercer: Yes. To talk about LIBOR funding for the moment, the NAO recently published a report. What are your collective views on the process of applying for LIBOR funds and then receiving them? £970 million is an extraordinary amount of money that has gone into this sector, but what have we got to show at the end of it? What has it actually achieved? How has it been managed in how it’s gone out? Do you think the Government should have had a better grip on where it goes? What would you prioritise for the remaining monies?

Sara Baade: We have seen some real improvements in the last year, I would say, in terms of how LIBOR money has been going out. Prior to that, maybe I am more in agreement with you on it. Last year, there were some real objectives of what we needed to meet and how we were going to monitor them, so we definitely moved to a strength on this.

It is a difficult one. We have received some LIBOR money ourselves, so it is tricky to say exactly what we think, but some projects have achieved some real good. I know in the project we have been receiving LIBOR funding for, we have directly met the needs of the families. With others, it is difficult to say; I have not seen the evaluations of the wider ones. I do think there is an improvement in how we had to apply for LIBOR. There was more rigorousness around that in the last year than we saw before.

Anna Wright: I agree with Sara. The process has evolved, and the 84-page document this last year was much more comprehensive and invites you to measure impact. So I think we are probably there now.

In terms of what we want to spend the remaining money on, I would like to throw in a suggestion. We are very disappointed that the educational support fund is going to come to an end. It has done some fantastic work. The demands that it meets are not going to disappear—families moving and families being separated. Particularly, the fantastic work in Scotland has been funded by the educational support fund. In Scotland they have a national transitions officer; that post is going to go. I would like to see some money go towards that.

Q13            Johnny Mercer: It is interesting, because some of the money has been used to do things such as modernise welfare facilities for junior ranks at RAF Shawbury, which is clearly a responsibility of the MoD, yet you are saying these other posts are being pulled because there isn’t the money in the LIBOR system to do that. That does not appear right to me.

Anna Wright: I believe the educational support fund came out of the Army pot and they cannot find it anymore and central MoD is struggling to find it.

Q14            Johnny Mercer: But I am not under the impression that when LIBOR was set up, it to reconstitute buildings on behalf of the MoD or perhaps make up part of the MoD’s contribution to the Invictus games. How long has this been going on? Have you known about this for a while?

Sara Baade: If you are looking only at the last year of where LIBOR funding is going, quite a bit of it is going into that—

Q15            Johnny Mercer: It is basically propping up the MoD budget.

Group Captain Mahon: I am not sure that is fair. The process that is now in place, as Anna said, with the 84-page application form and so on, helps to manage who gets what better than it originally.

Q16            Johnny Mercer: Okay, but even this year there was £2,000 to modernise welfare facilities for junior ranks at RAF Shawbury. That is not what the LIBOR fund was set up for.

Group Captain Mahon: I do not know that specific case, I’m afraid, so I cannot comment. I am not quite sure what improving the welfare facility means—if it means a new build or if it means new beer mats and pumps in the bar. That is not one I am aware of, so I cannot help with that specifically. I certainly take your point that there could be issues where not only LIBOR funding but the charities sector is almost expected to help in areas where you might expect the MoD to fund it itself.

Q17            Johnny Mercer: Who is responsible for financial oversight?

Group Captain Mahon: Of LIBOR? You have got the moving to charitable trust status.

Q18            Johnny Mercer: Who is responsible now for the distribution? Who is responsible for making decisions, whether money goes to an evidence-based charity that has a correct complaints procedure and that is professionally run and has deliverable outcomes, compared with somebody who just makes a lot of noise, lobbies MPs and then gets a lot of money and no one knows what happens to it? This is public money.

Group Captain Mahon: Absolutely, I agree with you. There is a team inside the MoD that looks at bids and is appointed specifically to do that and that is the team that is moving to charitable status, I understand, and will now become more independent.

Q19            Johnny Mercer: Again, it is just marking your own homework, isn’t it?

Group Captain Mahon: No. By moving to charitable status it would take that accusation away.

Q20            Johnny Mercer: I am not talking about the future. I am talking about now and where we are now with the £933 million of money that has gone into this sector.

Group Captain Mahon: I take your point absolutely, but I think that the process for getting the money is vastly improved over what it was and is far more robust than it has been in the past. For the outputs—absolutely, who has done what and what good has it done—

Q21            Johnny Mercer: But that is the only measurable thing for our men and women who serve.

Group Captain Mahon: I am not sure that is how that has been measured.

Q22            Johnny Mercer: No one cares how many flashy presentations and videos you can make about where the money is going. It is how it feels for our men and women who are serving. I have to be honest: this LIBOR thing started in 2009-10 and we are now at the end of that process; what can I honestly say to my community? What have we tangibly got from an amazing amount of money out of the last Government of George Osborne and David Cameron? What can I lay my hand on that is fundamentally better about veterans’ care? I don’t know the answer to that and I don’t know if you know the answer to that, either.

Group Captain Mahon: We will not know the answer on veterans, I’m afraid, because we do serving families.

Sara Baade: I guess I can share some of your concerns around it.

Q23            Johnny Mercer: They have done a report and the MoD can’t tell them where the money has gone.

Sara Baade: We have seen significant changes to the application process.

Q24            Johnny Mercer: I have no doubt it has got better, but it has only got better £933 million later. With that, we could have set up a world class veterans’ organisation that would have fundamentally changed the way that we looked after the people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is my point. I have no doubt that going forward we will be better.

Sara Baade: I am not saying that I am disagreeing with all the things that you are saying. I think I probably do agree. Again, I don’t want to be marked for what MoD are doing or not doing, but objectives have been clearer; however, on what has then been selected, I have raised the same concerns as you. Why did we select some of those? Those concerns I share with you.

Johnny Mercer: It’s tough for you guys. You can’t sit there and say, “This organisation should have that LIBOR money and this shouldn’t”. Ultimately you are all there in a pot hoping the MoD gives you the money from the LIBOR fund. That is totally wrong but there we go.

Chair: Ruth, do you want to come in?

Q25            Ruth Smeeth: I appreciate you all receive some of this funding. You are not the people who have determined that you have gone through the process. I am interested in the process itself because I completely agree with Johnny. I think there have been huge sums of money that have been given out to charities, and now, as we come towards the end of this pot of money, it is increasingly difficult for organisations to access the funding because it has been professionalised. Is it 84 pages for the application?

Sara Baade: Yes.

Q26            Ruth Smeeth: I have a charity in my constituency that is seeking to apply for funding, but it simply does not have the skill set to put in an 84-page application. Some of the smaller charities and organisations do not have the ability to engage in such a way. They missed the opportunity to engage when it was easier—and seemingly with no oversight—and now they cannot. Can you just talk us through the process for how you apply for funding now? You are obviously going through it.

Anna Wright: It is an online application form—you need to produce evidence.

Q27            Ruth Smeeth: How much harder has it got? You are some of the few organisations that would have applied right at the beginning and would probably have put in a bid. What I don’t want us to do is blame—you are the users of this, not the people who determined it. I am trying to turn it on its head. You can talk to us about how it has changed and evolved over the last eight years in a way that no one else can.

Anna Wright: I have only been doing this for two and a half years, but in the time that I have seen it, as we have said, the process has tightened up and is a much more rigorous, longer, more detailed format.

Sara Baade: The objectives are clearer as well, and what they are trying to achieve. You need to show evidence of how you are going to achieve that.

Anna Wright: And how you will measure your impact.

Group Captain Mahon: It is basically a comprehensive business case that answers lots of questions about whether it is sustainable and managed properly—all the things that you would expect when handing out these kinds of sums of money. I absolutely take your point about the smaller charities and the issues around filling in the form, but plenty of help is available for them, either through local Covenant organisations, or the families federations have expertise that can help with bid writing and so on. There is the facility to help people, but they need to know where to go to ask.

Q28            Ruth Smeeth: I think that is the issue. The National Lottery is streamlining its process and making it much easier, but we have just made it much harder—we have gone totally the other way.

Group Captain Mahon: I would agree.

Q29            Mrs Moon: One thing that the National Lottery has been criticised for is that it will not help with the costs of staff. You are constantly having to reinvent a new idea to get funding. Often, some of the smaller groups will get funding initially and prove themselves highly effective with the targeted community, but then they collapse because they need to invent a whole new set of priorities to keep going. They are constantly being expected to expand, whereas in fact if you just kept the focus—are there possibilities to make repeat applications to sustain an already successful project? I am getting an absolute shaking of heads. Basically, we are setting up failure, just as we have with the National Lottery for some organisations.

Sara Baade: It might be worth putting some of those questions to Cobseo, which is coming next. It will be speaking more on behalf of some of those smaller charities.

Q30            Mrs Moon: I just wondered if you felt that.

Sara Baade: We do.

Anna Wright: Absolutely. That is the case. You can have a project, but then you have to come up with a new proposition.

Q31            Mrs Moon: Is the Covenant too veterans-focused? Sara, you made a comment earlier on and I picked it up. Are we moving too much to seeing the Covenant as about veterans, and not actually about serving members of the Armed Forces?

Group Captain Mahon: This is something that we picked up primarily through our engagement with local authorities on a regional basis, and something that we mentioned to the Secretary of State when we met him just before Christmas. It is absolutely right that the Covenant has a focus on the veterans community, and no one is for a moment suggesting that this is in some way a deliberate move to a solely veterans focus. Sometimes we sense, particularly with things like local authority Covenant partnership boards and so on, that the agenda can be very veterans-heavy. That is not necessarily a criticism; it is just something to be aware and a little wary of. We asked the Secretary of State to take that forward to the ministerial board, to remind colleagues that the Covenant is there for the serving personnel and their families as well. He agreed to do that, so we hope to see that in the minutes.

Anna Wright: To be fair to local authorities, they have statutory requirements for service veterans. That naturally makes them more focused on veterans. We would not want there to be less focus on veterans, just more focus on the needs of families in the community.

Q32            Mrs Moon: Is that also because, in a sense, the veterans community is easier to identify than the dispersed families community?

Group Captain Mahon: There is a lot in that. In a way, for some of these organisations, it can be easier for them to do something with the veterans community than with service personnel and their families. The dispersed families point is a very valid one, because they are a difficult cohort to get to. I am LIBOR funded to look at how we can engage better with dispersed families, particularly in the light of the future accommodation model coming on stream in years to come. I would not say that dealing with the veterans community is easier for them, but perhaps it is less complicated.

Q33            Mrs Moon: Every one of us would say to you that if we wanted to talk to our veterans communities, we would know where to go: there are clear organisations we could go to; we could pull them in and we could talk to them. Other than through you, there is no way to reach families, and not all families engage with the families federations. Is there any work that you are undertaking to have families understand the opportunities presented to them by the Covenant to approach local authorities and Members of Parliament, for example, about the problems that they experience?

Sara Baade: We do a lot to inform families about what the Covenant is all about and how it can help and support them. We have really good reach on social media. There is cynicism among our families about the Covenant—that it is not really making a huge difference. I will be blunt with you. I think, as I said before, that it works for us—we can open doors—but I do not think that the families believe that it makes a huge difference to them. As a general statement, I will be blunt on that. That is the case for my families at least; Anna and Bill might differ slightly, but I do not think that they generally feel that there is a lot for them.

Q34            Mrs Moon: That is really helpful. Would you agree?

Group Captain Mahon: Broadly, yes. Quite often, we say to families, “Have you heard of the Covenant?” and they say, “No.” We say to them, “Have you heard of Forces Help to Buy? Have you heard of what they are doing with mobile phone contracts if you get posted overseas, or car insurance when you come back from overseas?” and they say, “Yes, we know all about that.” We say to them, “Actually, you have heard about the Covenant, then. That is what the Covenant has done. Those are the sort of things that the Covenant has helped with.” That goes back to what I said earlier: being aware of the Covenant so that you can use it when you need it is probably the most important thing. Most of the time, the vast majority of our people do not need the Covenant.

Q35            Mrs Moon: Mental health is an area that the Committee is taking a great interest in. What would you say are the priorities for mental health treatment for the families that you communicate with?

Sara Baade: Mental health is not something that any of us is dealing with day to day, because there are other charities that are better suited. We often refer most of the families. I think the waiting list is by far the biggest issue for us, particularly for children and adolescents—ensuring that when very mobile families move from one area to another, they can maintain their waiting list place to get seen, be evaluated and get the right treatment. That is particularly with children and adolescents, but also with adults who have ongoing treatment and want to move that without having to start again in the system. Those are probably the main areas, but as I said, our exposure and our work around mental health is fairly limited, because there are other charities much better equipped than we are.

Q36            Mrs Moon: Does that pose a particular problem, if people move between devolved Administrations?

Sara Baade: Yes, a very big difference, because they have very different set-ups for how they do it. Often we can work case by case with individuals to move them, but if we are going into a totally different system, which devolved systems are, then that is a different scenario and much harder. That is if provision is even delivered; sometimes we do not even have the same provision there, so it is different.

Mrs Moon: That is a particular weakness we have at the moment.

Sara Baade: Yes.

Q37            Mrs Moon: Is there any organisation that is monitoring and following that? To deal with it, you have to demonstrate. Is anyone actually tracking the difficulties that families are experiencing in accessing mental health provision if they move between Administrations?

Sara Baade: I do not know.

Group Captain Mahon: I do not know, sorry.

Anna Wright: One thing that families have reported to us is that there is a gap, a lack of understanding. Organisations such as CAMHS do not ask the right questions about service life, so do not have any understanding of what family life is like for service children. I think there is some work to be done there, whether it is us or other bodies that do that, so that when families present, they know the right questions to ask and have some understanding of what they are dealing with.

Q38            Mrs Moon: So that is in relation to the NHS, but can I ask you, in terms of the concerns that Cobseo has expressed about pressure faced by the MoD’s department of community mental health, do you have any concerns there? Are you picking up concerns?

Sara Baade: Again, it is not something necessarily more than the waiting list—that is the main thing we are getting—but we are, from my point of view, mostly deferring some of those inquiries straight to mental health charities. I am sure Cobseo will have better evidence on that than we do.

Group Captain Mahon: We have had nothing on that at all, from our perspective. I am not saying that they are wrong, but it is not something that we have picked up on, and I do not think it is something that the RAF recovery people at Headquarters Air Command have particularly picked up on in our case. The mental health piece alongside the welfare organisations, especially at unit level, are really quite joined-up and coherent in picking these things up. The points in the Cobseo comments in the report I am sure are valid, but it was pointed out to me that sometimes the best treatment for some individuals is to refer them to a welfare organisation that can help them tackle the root cause of their issue. The view was that that is probably a valid response in some cases, making the point of course that every case is individual and different, as to how it gets treated.

Q39            Mrs Moon: Moving on then to education—another area where I imagine families have a particular focus and interest—what do you see as the right level for the service pupil premium, and how do you see its application playing out across the different Administrations?

Anna Wright: Of course we would like to see it increased, but we were discussing this prior to this meeting and actually what we would really like to see is for it to be extended to early years and up to 18 years, because there are gaps at either end in terms of pastoral support. That would be my preference—to see service pupil premium extended. We know that the devolved Administrations have looked at it. Of course we would like to see it everywhere as well.

Sara Baade: So at the moment it is just in England. Service pupil premium is only effective in England. There is no such thing in devolved Administrations, so we would really like to see the same support across the UK and not just in England.

Q40            Mrs Moon: Under the Barnett formula, there are Barnett consequentials of the pupil premium that go to the devolved Administrations and that is why I am asking you how you see it playing out. They get the money. Are they doing the job?

Sara Baade: We certainly do not see that there is a service pupil premium in the devolved Administrations. We have not seen that, so that is an interesting one. Another interesting one is to see how schools are actually using it, because we are seeing a huge variety of how they are being used. I know that the DfE is publishing some recommendations for schools exactly on how they can better implement it. We see everything, from SPP being used for music lessons to its being used for pastoral care, so clearer guidance for schools about how it is being used will be very useful. But on the devolved Administrations, we only see it as in England to be honest with you, so that is interesting.

Anna Wright: I think there is some really great work in Scotland and support to service children, but it is not well known about. I would be really keen to publicise that so that our families in Scotland or those contemplating moving to Scotland understand what is being provided. I think there is good provision.

Q41            Mrs Moon: I have a general final question: how much advice and guidance do you give to service families when they are moving between Administrations, and is there a need for the MoD to provide better awareness of the implications of moving from, say, a base in England to a base in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales? Is there a communications gap, with people suddenly finding themselves thinking, “What happened?”

Sara Baade: I think there is a communications gap full stop, to be honest with you. There is a lack of communication to our families in general. We provide information to them, but I went up to Scotland a couple of months ago and education was a big thing there. They were saying very clearly: “We were not told about the fact that the schooling system is totally different in Scotland compared with England. Had we been told that, we would probably have reconsidered this.” There is that real lack of information prior to postings, prior to families making the decisions. One of the things we have been trying to say all along is that we need much more information at a much earlier stage so that families can make informed choices about what is right for them as a family, not just after a posting order has arrived. That is when we need it, on what the implications are for families.

Q42            Mr Francois: This follows on from that quite well I think. What will the education, accommodation and healthcare requirements be for those who are relocated as part of the defence estate rationalisation and the drawdown from Germany? Following on from your previous answer, Sara, I presume you are going to say, “Much better communication and information.”

Sara Baade: Yes. I think the Army is the one mainly making the changes. I would say that we need to make sure that the right provision is there, obviously. We need to make sure that there is communication, and not when the relocation is happening but before. Families are not planning their schooling now; they are planning months and years in advance where they are going to go. We need that communication in a timely manner. Then we need to evaluate and monitor as we go through the process to make sure that waiting lists are maintained and all that sort of thing. Definitely provision, communication, and monitoring and evaluating are the three things that we need to be doing.

I am quite reassured about the Army’s work on the rebasing back from Germany. They are doing some good work and some good mitigations on those areas which need them, so I do feel quite reassured about that. We have seen some really good examples of rebasing to Catterick—the Lancers are moving back in—but we have seen others where, for example, the 5 Rifles came back and had real issues with their housing, even though we knew they were coming. In addition, it is a matter of learning the lessons of what has been done in the past: what can we learn and how can we make sure that we are correcting things before the—I don’t want to say bulk—mass of people come back from Germany. Have we learned the lessons? But with the provision for education, health and everything else, I feel quite reassured at the moment that the Army have the numbers at least in the right place and that schooling and healthcare will be sufficient.

Q43            Mr Francois: The other two, Anna? The maybe moving to Faslane or moving more of the submarines there?

Anna Wright: Yes. There are some big hurdles in terms of persuading families to move north, things like the education—

Q44            Mrs Moon: The exam system.

Anna Wright: Yes, the education and exam system, but also regarding spouses working. There is a perception that you are going to be stuck out in Faslane and there will be no jobs, and the reality is that there are not many jobs out in Faslane. If you are a professional and you want to work in Glasgow, it is 40 minutes away. There is not enough wraparound childcare. Everybody is talking to each other on social media. Everybody knows what you are going to be facing, and it rains a lot. But actually the folk who I visit up there have a lovely time. It is a really good quality of life and they are really happy, but at the moment there are these barriers. I have been working with the General Teaching Council for Scotland on recognition of education qualifications—teachers’ qualifications—because we heard a lot about the difficulty of getting into the education system. We managed to uncover the issues around that and make the process smoother, and I am going to be communicating that to families. I would like to do the same for nursing qualifications, because I think it is about understanding how to transition between the Administrations. But it is all about communication, as Sara said, and we are all working to try and inform families that there are some challenges.

Mr Francois: I think we are going to move on.

Chair: Before you do, I would like to bring Martin in.

Q45            Martin Docherty-Hughes: Thank you Chairman; I am sorry, I was in another meeting before I came in.

As a Scottish constituency MP who is right next to Faslane, a 40-minute ride is not too bad to Glasgow. It is quite a direct train and it doesn’t rain all the time. It does make the place very green, and makes it very nice to live in.

I was very interested in the relocation process. Do you think, therefore, that the MoD has a responsibility to articulate the differences of Administration within the areas? I would fundamentally think it would be their responsibility to make sure that anyone returning from, say, Germany, whatever part of the UK they are going to be living in, is given the appropriate information about who to talk to—what is available. For instance, the pupil equity investment does not just have a general education purposes, but targets children across a range of areas within Scotland. Do you think the MoD really needs to step up to the plate, so whether you are in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, you have a full understanding of what you are going to arrive into?

One of the issues I raised in a very early Adjournment debate, Chair, when I first got elected in 2015, was the relationship between young carers and their service personnel relations who might be veterans. There are different elements of that across the UK. I had hoped the Minister would have picked that up by then, but the MoD needs to articulate that for when a decision is made about where you are going to come home to.

Anna Wright: Absolutely. I think Argyll and Bute are working really closely with the Navy and they have produced some fantastic publications, and they have been passed down to the Plymouth area to pass out to educate people. Obviously it depends on who is looking, and what your view is, so you might be focused on the different tax in Scotland or on the fact that Scotland has free prescriptions. It just depends on what you are looking at and it needs to have a fairly neutral presentation of the facts. When I visit people in Scotland, they are having a great time and the quality of life is fantastic, but the perception is that there are all these challenges, and the tax thing is the latest addition.

Q46            Martin Docherty-Hughes: So you would think that the MoD needs to work with devolved Administrations. I think the new veterans board might be one example of where devolved Administrations could be included in the discussions about how we articulate what happens across different elements of the United Kingdom. That improves the situation for everybody. Again, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland is working very hard to make sure that services children have a really good opening gambit once they enter the Scottish education system. That is also best practice that can be shared across the rest of the UK.

Sara Baade: On education, Anna had a good perspective. I went to visit Kinloss and education in Scotland was by far the biggest concern for our families up there. They were really unhappy about it, and I think we are probably seeing both sides to that. There is a division between education systems. I am not saying one is better; it is a case of how to make them work together. There are definite issues.

Chair: As general guidance, I want to try to wrap this session up by half-past 12. I think we are on track if colleagues just bear that in mind.

Q47            Mr Francois: Yes, Chair. On accommodation, Amey has confirmed it will take over responsibility and the service obligation for the regional, prime and national housing contracts from the Ministry of Defence, following the collapse of Carillion. Are you seeking assurances from Amey, and from the MoD—the DIO—on the future delivery of these contracts, to make sure that there is no interruption in service, particularly as we are in winter now?

Group Captain Mahon: We did not have to seek them; they rang us up and told us. We had fairly instant communication from senior people inside Amey and from the MoD and the DIO to provide that assurance which we could then pass on to our families and serving personnel. That assurance is there. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, but it has been passed to us.

Q48            Mr Francois: Was it your impression that a plan B was in place?

Group Captain Mahon: To have got a plan quite so quickly suggests that people were talking about it before the event actually happened. I think it is fair to say that, yes.

Q49            Mr Francois: Do you think that Amey taking over this contract will lead to an improvement in performance? There has been a lot of criticism.

Group Captain Mahon: I hope so. The problems with the joint venture are well known and have been around for a long time. It is a great shame that in the last six months or so CarillionAmey started to perform to the contract in most areas, having taken the better part of three years to get there.

Is this welcome? No, it is not. It is a pain in the neck and people will be concerned. We have had a spike—I am sure we all have—on our Facebook and web pages and so on about what is going on, what is happening, so that early assurance was very welcome. As I say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We will have to see.

All three of us are working together with the DIO and talking to them about what the next contract ought to contain and the expectations of our families about—I am wary of using terms such as “best practice” for this sort of contract, because that is what they claimed last time—how to make improvements from the lessons identified and learned from this experience and to make sure that the service that gets provided is contractually achievable in a reasonable way for the company delivering it and is an open book. Hopefully, that will allow a wider group of organisations to bid for the work. I am probably talking about some of the big housing associations and that sort of thing, rather than just the Carillions and the Ameys of this world.

We have started that discussion with them, and that is where our focus lies. Amey running it has come a bit left of field, but we have had the assurances that they are going to crack on.

Q50            Ruth Smeeth: I should have said earlier that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Armed Forces Covenant. Let’s talk about Amey—two things—before we more on to accommodation more broadly. You have had immediate communication. My concern, which I raised yesterday in the House, is about what communication will get to families and how that will trickle down. I completely agree that up until this point, we have been clear that the MoD skillset does not lie in talking to people, so what responsibilities are you going to take and how will you roll out some of the comms?

Sara Baade: We have already rolled out some of the comms that we got from them. By mid-morning yesterday, we had information on our Facebook pages, our website and everything else. We will use social media channels ourselves. I am sure that Anna and Bill will do something similar on that because that is part of our job, but I do not think that that should replace the need to do something more formally. That is what we would do, because we see that as part of our aims and objectives—to keep our families up to date—but I think there is a need to reassure the families from all points. When we posted to the Facebook pages that the service will continue as it is already, people said, “What service? What service is that?”, so that needs to be said as well. We need to be realistic about what families are expecting.

Q51            Ruth Smeeth: Through the Chair, would you mind providing us with monthly updates on how the transfer from CarillionAmey to Amey is going?

Sara Baade: Yes, we can do that.

Group Captain Mahon: Yes.

Anna Wright: Yes.

Q52            Ruth Smeeth: Okay. Let’s talk about how wonderful the accommodation model has been so far and how well it is working, because none of us has had any complaints whatsoever about the CarillionAmey model.

Chair: Can we put the word “irony” in square brackets?

Ruth Smeeth: Yes. Why has this proven to be such a serious problem? What has gone wrong with the CarillionAmey contract?

Anna Wright: It was a very cheap contract. It was £180 million less than the previous contract. That says it all really, doesn’t it? It was a short contract. It was a cheap contract. They bid too low, the Government did not pay enough and families suffered as a result. We are really keen not to have a repeat of that and not to have to give evidence at the Public Accounts Committee, because that was uncomfortable. We are heavily involved in the process of the new bid. We are hoping it is going to be a longer contract. We are told that boilers will actually be replaced under a long contract because it will make sense to the contractor to do that rather just to patch one up seven times. Like Bill, I do not want to say “best practice”, but we have been told lots of positive things this time. Mainly, it comes down to funds. If it is cheaper than the last one, we will be very concerned.

Q53            Ruth Smeeth: It also comes down to what is actually in the contract. The letter and spirit of the contract have been two different things.

Sara Baade: There is a particular issue with KPIs. I strongly believe that the KPIs that were set in this contract are the wrong ones. For example, one is that 95% of urgent repairs should be met. There are 40,000 SFAs, so according to that KPI, 2,000 families do not need repairs made urgently. Surely, 100% of urgent repairs need to be met. In other words, we have all sorts of families sitting around not getting the service they expect. The bit we need to look at is the KPIs and the contract that were negotiated. We all know that CarillionAmey have not done a good job, but we need to take one step back: the budget, the KPIs and the contract they were working under were, in my opinion, not fit for purpose. The families are the ones suffering. I know that we are quite outspoken, but the housing situation is by far the biggest thing that comes in to us and by far the biggest concern for our families. The Army has a bigger stake in this than the other two services, but they have the problem, too. We need to ensure that whatever comes next in terms of a maintenance contract is better than what we have now.

Group Captain Mahon: I agree with all that. The SFA issues are well known. I would highlight that in a number of areas we are now having similar or worse problems with single living accommodation—grade 3 and grade 4 accommodation. That is becoming a retention factor. We have highly qualified and technically adept young airmen joining the Air Force who are being sent to work on fifth-generation aircraft—when they arrive—and accommodated in the equivalent of a prison cell, with a 2-foot-6-wide metal bed, a bedside table and a small storage locker. The loos are 100 metres down the corridor and they might or might not be working. There might be heating; there might not be heating. It is not meeting their expectations.

Q54            Ruth Smeeth: No. Someone is really going to have to explain to me those 2-foot-6 metal beds. Every time I visit, I do not understand why that is a thing. Let’s talk about the combined accommodation assessment system. How does it need to be changed?

Sara Baade: Do you want me to take that one, too? Housing is a big one for us. I would say there are a couple of things. The complaints procedure needs to be much clearer. At the moment, it is not clear how families with concerns about being placed in a certain banding can complain. Even when they complain, their complaint needs to go to appeal stage before anyone actually looks at it. That needs to be much easier.

The communication that goes out needs to be much simpler. It needs to be easier for families to understand what they have been judged on, the reason for the increase or decrease in their rent—well, you do not tend to complain about decreases—and why their rent is different from their neighbour’s when their houses are identical. That is the sort of thing we are getting. It needs to be much timelier than it is at the moment, too. There is no reason why it should not be ready when families move in. That is when they should have information, rather than much later on. Those are the main things.

Group Captain Mahon: It is worth saying that when the CAAS system was introduced, it was badly needed. There are a lot of strengths to it. It replaced an outdated, outmoded and very expensive system, and it has brought a lot of common sense to the process. Unfortunately, the timing of its introduction was dreadful, in as much as it arrived just as CarillionAmey were at their lowest point. It brought with it rent rises. Inevitably our people associated CAAS with CarillionAmey performance—it was all in the same pot and just charging us more for a poorer service. That was perhaps the understandable reaction, although the performance of CAAS and CarillionAmey are two totally different subjects.

CAAS had and still has our support. The working group is looking at how to simplify it because it is far too complicated, which is good. Sara is absolutely right. I re-emphasise that the communication of the changes has in our opinion been pretty poor and confusing. It has often left people hanging. They say, “I have got a letter that says my rent is going up, but it has not told me why specifically.” It needs much more work, but the potential is there to get it right.

Anna Wright: We were told that the increases in rent—that extra money—would be reinvested. I do not know about the others, but I have not seen any evidence of that yet.

Sara Baade: We would like to see that. We were also told that it would be cost-neutral and that it was not done to increase money, yet more than 80% have seen their rent increase. We would love to see where some of that money has gone and how that is now going to be ploughed back in.

Group Captain Mahon: The estimate before it was introduced was that about 25% would see an increase in charges, 25% would see a reduction and about 50% would stay the same. That was the estimate—I accept that it was an estimate—but the reality is, as Sara said, that 80% have seen an increase.

Q55            Ruth Smeeth: Let us talk about the MoD and single living accommodation—I think this will be for all of you, but mainly for Bill—and the continuing delay in the establishment of a single living accommodation management system. Would it help? What are you being told?

Group Captain Mahon: I am not sure how it will help beyond telling the system where the beds are and how many of them are full. This is something that they were talking about introducing back in 2013-14, and we are now hearing that it will not come along until the end of 2019. I am not quite sure what the delay has been, but we know that it has been paused and reviewed, paused and reviewed and paused and changed. In the meantime, all three services still have a significant cohort of single living personnel living in grade 3 and grade 4 accommodation. SLAM is brilliant, and people love the modern accommodation and the prices and charges they pay for it. It goes down very well. We are very concerned that there are maintenance issues now starting to appear with SLAM accommodation, let alone grade 3 and grade 4. I can tell you that I am aware of at least one main operating base where new arrivals—permanent staff posted into the station—are being put into transit accommodation. That is the type of accommodation I have just described to you, with its 2-foot-6-wide bed. There is an 18-month waiting list to get into SLAM.

Q56            Chair: Can I just ask you something on that very point? You are saying that the modern single living accommodation is widely welcomed. I have heard suggestions from time to time that the effect of it is to reduce somewhat the sense of community and camaraderie between soldiers, particularly for anyone who is under some form of stress, who retreats into their own room and does not receiving the support of comrades. You are the Families Federation. Have you had any evidence of that, or is modern single living accommodation a universally welcomed development?

Group Captain Mahon: We have had some evidence of that. It is not a panacea. Quite often it is down to the local unit staff and the station executive as to how they handle that situation. If I may, I think it is probably more of an issue for the Army than it is for the other two services. The quality of the accommodation is good. It is broadly welcomed by the majority, but yes, inevitably there will be a small number where it creates an issue for them, and then it is down to the local management to try to manage that.

Q57            Chair: Are there any other observations on that?

Anna Wright: When the funding is devolved to the TLBs, we are concerned about who will own it and whether single living accommodation will ever be high enough on the priority list to be dealt with. We have years and years of lack of investment in some accommodation—it really is a big bill. It is a retention issue, and somebody needs to own it.

Group Captain Mahon: Moving it across to the TLBs is a good thing—it will give local commanders the opportunity to prioritise issues better—but there is no new money or extra money. They still have exactly the same problem of what to spend on what.

Ruth Smeeth: We could have spent all our time talking about accommodation—Mark and I have raised it repeatedly in the Chamber.

Mr Francois: I called CarillionAmey a company I would not trust to organise a social event in a beer production facility.

Q58            Ruth Smeeth: When we both attacked it in the Chamber, its share price fell but, given recent events, I am not sure whether we should be proud of that.

I would like to move on to the role of the Covenant in transition for families and service personnel, as they move from service life to civilian life. What do you think the Covenant could do better to facilitate that?

Sara Baade: We as tri-services have all been funded through the Forces in Mind Trust to look into this in a little more detail. We are in the middle of that research, by having members of staff work particularly on that area. If you ask us again in about eight months’ time, we will have the full report, to be able to tell you exactly what we think you need to know.

The short version is that we need better information earlier—the communication and information provision, again. There is a lot of support for serving personnel when they leave the services. There is no reason why some of that cannot be extended to the families. Remember that the family have lived a service life for all their lives, so they will go through very similar things as the serving person. How can that be extended? We do not have the evidence just yet to tell you this, this and this, but we will.

Q59            Ruth Smeeth: Would that be the same answer for everyone?

Group Captain Mahon: We have a joint survey on the go that is producing some not unexpected results on communication, access to information and knowing where to go for help and support. This is an area where the MoD and the Covenant can do more. For many, transition is something they just do and get on with, but for a lot of families there are issues. I went downstairs on a Monday morning for breakfast and my wife said, “Aren’t you going to work today?” I said, “No, I left the Air Force last Friday.” It just happened. For others, it is a much more traumatic process sometimes involving relocation, finding a house, a job and children’s schooling, and everything that goes with that. There is a lot more that the system in the round can do to help.

Q60            Ruth Smeeth: You made adroit observations in the annual report, but is there one specific concern about each service that you would like to highlight?

Sara Baade: From my point of view, it is the future of our accommodation model. If I were to pick one thing that our families asked about, that would be it. There are real concerns about where the Government are taking the proposal for housing our families. The model has changed significantly since the MoD last surveyed our families in ’16. Since then, there has been very little information and consultation with our families. I would ask for much better information and consideration of the families. At the moment, it feels like the approach to families is very financially driven. We need to look at the potential implication if we just continue pushing that from a financial point. Both retention and recruitment clearly will be linked to that.

Ruth Smeeth: Yes.

Mrs Moon: Yes, we get that.

Anna Wright: For the naval service, I would like to highlight the challenge for foreign and Commonwealth families. Personnel who are deploying for nine months who are single mums would normally drag in grandma or a family member to provide some family support—that is not an option for foreign and Commonwealth families. MPs have tried to navigate it, but the Home Office considers somebody coming in to help with childcare as coming in to work. My feeling is that we are enticing people to come and serve in our armed forces. They say it is a very appealing package but then, one we have got them, we do not really want their family. I would really like us to look at how we can support foreign and Commonwealth family families better, and treat them—

Q61            Ruth Smeeth: I would like to talk to you all separately afterwards about the visa aspect of that, too. I have now had it raised with the Army and the Navy; I haven’t yet with the RAF. The amount of money that people are having to pay as well, to cover the deployment—£1,800 a year is a ridiculous amount of money.

Bill, what would you like in your dream world?

Group Captain Mahon: In terms of the Covenant, I would have to be boring and go with accommodation. That is the one that we hear about most of all from our personnel and their families. As I mentioned earlier, in Covenant terms, there is more work that can be done in support of reservists and their families, and in support of dispersed families, which is going to become much more the nature of the beast as the Future Accommodation Model comes in. So that would be my—leaving aside pay and things like that, of course.

Ruth Smeeth: We will still keep fighting for those too.

Q62            John Spellar: Isn’t it interesting that, historically, there have always been issues about Army and Navy accommodation, whereas that was not much of an issue for the RAF previously, because the RAF spent much more than the other two services on training, on maintaining their accommodation.

Group Captain Mahon: Absolutely, and I think it is a sign of the way things have changed. Don’t forget, we are talking about a massive number of people, a massive cohort. Across the commissioned and non-commissioned ranks, north of 60% of our people own their own houses. So we are not talking about a huge cohort. I think it is indicative of the fact that, yes, we had a well-maintained base that some time ago was handed over to someone else to maintain. We are now seeing problems either because the infrastructure is ageing and therefore more difficult and expensive to maintain, or because, as we all know, some of the maintenance has not met the standards. I think that has really driven the shift.

Q63            Chair: May I thank you all very much indeed? It has been quite a lengthy session; we really appreciate the work you do and your coming today. Feel free to stay on if you wish, if you have the time, as we now call in the service charity representatives.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Charles Byrne, Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory, General Sir John McColl and Mary Moreland.

Q64            Chair: Thank you all for patiently waiting. When everyone is settled, please introduce yourselves, starting with you Mary.

Mary Moreland: Mary Moreland, Chairman of the War Widows Association

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Andrew Gregory, Controller Chief Executive of SSAFA, the Armed Forces Charity.

General Sir John McColl: John McColl, Executive Chairman, of COBSEO the Confederation of Service Charities.

Charles Byrne: Charles Byrne, Director General of the Royal British Legion.

Q65            Martin Docherty-Hughes: May I ask all of the panel what interaction you have had with the new Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board and whether you think two meetings a year are sufficient.

General Sir John McColl: The establishment of the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board took us by surprise. We were not aware that it was a suggestion in the offing. When it came along, we were slightly concerned that there was no representation from the third sector on it. We made that representation and in answer to that, as you are aware, we were given a meeting with the First Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Defence with a view to informing the agenda of the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board. At that meeting, we had the First Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. We also had ADS people and a Cabinet Office representative, as well as those whom you see in front of you and the families federations.

It was a successful meeting. We were able to confirm that the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board would take ownership of the new veterans’ strategy, and we think that is very important. They would also take ownership of the communications strategy aimed at addressing the issues associated with the mad, bad and sad impression of veterans. Also, they would take an interest in the measurement of the outcomes in terms of the Covenant. That was all positive. They also agreed that we would have two meetings a year so that we could inform the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board prior to their meetings. From our perspective, it was helpful, and we feel that we have the mechanisms in place to be able to inform it and, so far, it seems to have worked satisfactorily. But we have only had one meeting, so it is fairly early days.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I would echo that. Understanding that it sits at the top of a pyramid of meetings is important. We have got the next Covenant reference group, officials-level meeting chaired by the Cabinet Office. It is very important that it continues to be chaired by the Cabinet Office, so that it drives the pan-Government delivery of the Covenant at the end of January. We have the next service charities partnership board meeting in mid-February with the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. Then the new meeting you have referred to sits on top of that. That is encouraging and the meeting, as John said, was genuinely productive.

Charles Byrne: There is a secondary benefit as well, because if the Ministerial leads who will be driving the delivery of the Covenant through others at dispersed Departments report in to that meeting, that gives a focal point for it. So there is an extra benefit there, as Andrew says. It sits at the top of a pyramid of meetings, so that will give it a focus that we think will be useful.

General Sir John McColl: The cross-Government co-ordination has been a constant theme of our concern in terms of delivery of the Covenant. Having this board, with the lead Ministers from each Department answering into it, is a very helpful development. Having said that, we are a bit surprised that, given the fact that it was in November, we are still not aware of the names of those lead Ministers. We would wish to see that at the earliest opportunity.

Mary Moreland: I would concur with everything that has been said. It is very important that there is that accessibility to Ministers, Department heads and departmental leads.

Q66            Martin Docherty-Hughes: I am glad that you have found it a productive process. You talked about cross-government co-ordination. A lot of the elements of veteran support, whether in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, are also devolved. Given that the third sector, I would suppose, in England has been asked to participate in the method that you have explained, do you think, that now would be the time to involve in some fashion the devolved Administrations within health, mental health, health and social care and education, so that Ministers with devolved competencies can play their part in delivering the devolved element of the Covenant?

General Sir John McColl: They are involved in the Covenant Reference Group; they have the opportunity to make their input there. If you are saying should they be involved more extensively, in what areas?

Q67            Martin Docherty-Hughes: The board itself.

General Sir John McColl: Indeed. Anything that assists delivery right across the UK must be welcomed.

Q68            Martin Docherty-Hughes: It might not necessarily be a Minister. An example from Scotland is the veterans commissioner—a civil servant.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: The model in Scotland is good, with Veterans Scotland taking the lead. I personally sit on its board, and the engagement with the Scottish Government, the veterans commissioner and others in Scotland is positive, as is the way the charities work there. The co-location of the major charities—Poppyscotland, Veterans Scotland, the Regular Forces Employment Association and SSAFA—in one building, Haig House north, is a great model.

General Sir John McColl: It is a good model. Of course, Veterans Scotland is a permanent member of Cobseo.

Q69            Martin Docherty-Hughes: My question is not just about Scotland. It is about the devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland, where there are issues with the implementation. Is the board itself an opportunity to learn?

General Sir John McColl: As I said, they are represented at the CRG. That is an interesting point, and it may well be that they should be represented at this additional committee, which informs the agenda of the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board. As to whether they should be members of the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board, I would suggest that that is probably more a question for you than for us. We are witnesses, not Members of Parliament.

Q70            Martin Docherty-Hughes: Let us move on. Do you think that the Defence Secretary and the First Secretary of State met their commitment to meet separately with leading charities and the single service families federations to discuss the Covenant on an annual basis? Do you think they meet you often enough?

General Sir John McColl: We have had the first of those meetings. They agreed, as a consequence of finding that meeting helpful, that they would like to do it twice a year. We would like to do it twice a year. The idea is that those meetings will be used as a primer to inform the agenda of the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board. Provided that there are only two meetings of the AFCVB, two meetings a year is probably adequate for us, given the fact that, as Andrew outlined, we have a regime of other meetings that provides an interface with Government. It is really quite comprehensive.

Q71            Martin Docherty-Hughes: Is that generally agreed?

Mary Moreland: Yes. It is not just the meetings but the accessibility of Ministers outside the meetings. If something arises, you have that accessibility.

Q72            Martin Docherty-Hughes: You have probably already answered the next question. Will the appointment of a lead Minister for the Covenant and veterans issues in the relevant Departments make a difference? I get the idea that you are looking for those appointments and names to come forward, so I assume the answer to that is yes across the board.

Charles Byrne: Yes.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I checked last night, and they have not yet been produced. I think the sooner the better. Whether it is a name or an appointment, and the person filling the position takes that lead, we need somebody who is going to be a champion in each of the major Departments.

Q73            Mrs Moon: Just a word of advice. When you get the names and agreements from those individuals to follow up on things, keep a list of what they have agreed to do, because they may go the day after, and you will need to inform the next chappy or chapess what their predecessor was going to do. That is one of the great problems when people circulate within a system. Do make sure you are aware of that risk.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Wise words.

Q74            Martin Docherty-Hughes: I do not know whether you can advise us, Chair, whether the Committee can write to the appropriate Minister to find out when those appointments are coming forward. I am sure the Committee would like to know about it. That would assist everyone involved.

Where do you think are the gaps in Government ability to measure the delivery of the Covenant, and what should the Government do about them?

General Sir John McColl: You may have read the comments we put in. The Cobseo comments reflect the input we have had from our constituency, which is the service charity sector. Obviously, the Royal British Legion and the Families Federation have produced their own comments. Those comments reflected exactly that. We put in there that we would wish to see a series of targets set for the Secretary of State for Defence and to see him report against those targets. I referred earlier to the advent of a veterans strategy. We have not had one of those before. One of the key elements of that strategy should be targets against which the Government—not just the Ministry of Defence—are required to deliver. I hope that we will be involved in the development of the veterans strategy as it matures. One of the things that we will be seeking to drive into that is a mechanism for imposing those targets, but that is quite difficult.

Earlier, I heard the question, “Should this be imposed on an independent academic institution?” One of the recommendations, unsurprisingly, is effectively the services’ own think-tank, the Forces in Mind Trust. That is certainly a proposal, and you will have seen the plethora of very good independently commissioned FiMT studies of things like mental health across the nations of the UK. That is just one example. They do this kind of objective analysis well, but I must say it would be a huge ask, because the range of deliverables that you would be seeking for them to measure right across health, education and employment is huge. Therefore, you would need the organisations required to deliver the requirement to put in place independent mechanisms for their delivery, rather than just to say to the Forces in Mind Trust, “Over to you.”

This is an absolutely critical point. This year’s Covenant report from the Government, which is very positive—it should be, because a lot of progress has been made—is full of initiatives. It is full of things that are going to happen, but unless we see the output measured, delivered and fulfilled, it will not make a difference to the beneficiaries.

Q75            Martin Docherty-Hughes: Finally, on the measurement of outputs and the real implications and impact of those outputs, having a local government background, I always used to notice that local authorities had a lot of plans and initiatives but, because there were so many, there was no tangible change. Do you think that those outputs need to be more focused on issues that you think require targeting?

General Sir John McColl: The more you can narrow it down, the more likely you are to get hard evidence of deliverables—I absolutely take that point—but it is a broad spectrum. That is the nature of the community that we are trying to serve. There is a broad spectrum of requirements.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: It has been a constant challenge to ascertain whether progress is being made with removing disadvantage for serving personnel, families and veterans. This year’s report contains more charts. We have reports from previous years, so we can start to see a trend. You raise a really important point about whether we are measuring inputs or genuine outputs and outcomes. That is a challenge we are all facing. SSAFA produces its own “Making an impact” report. To be quite honest, quite a lot of it is about stuff we are doing, not about changing outcomes. We are all seeking better to tackle how we measure outcomes. For example, doing a visit to somebody is an input; stopping them losing their house is an outcome. We are trying to measure that. That is a difficult challenge. We are keen to work with Defence to improve that measurement.

Charles Byrne: Targets are tempting, but it is very difficult to measure impact and output. We already work together. We share some metrics—outcome stars—where we investigate before and after to see the effect. The service charities are already sharing common metrics. That helps us measure against one another, but it is really hard to measure impact. It needs to be done, but it is not easy.

Mary Moreland: From the war widows’ point of view, we have been a very neglected cohort for a very long time. This is the first year that the report has actually included the phrase “war widow”. Again, we are starting from a very low baseline with measuring impact. I took over the chairman’s role in the association just last year and have started a review, but as a membership organisation we represent perhaps only 10% to 12% of the total population of war widows—and war widowers. When I talk about war widows, that includes 72-plus war widowers. We are starting from a low baseline. This is perhaps an opportunity to start to measure against targets and gain information, but we need evidence of where the impact is before we start measuring.

Q76            Leo Docherty: Talking of measurements, do you think that the MoD is guilty of marking its own homework on current commitments? That question is to all of you, but perhaps we can start with you, Sir John.

General Sir John McColl: We have the opportunity to sit on the CRG, which produces updates on the traffic lights system, which you can see at the back of the report. We comment on that, and if we do not like it we make our views very clear. To an extent, the evidence that comes in to initially inform that chart certainly comes from Government sources in the majority of instances. However, it does not go past without any comment. Indeed, we have had them changed, because we have insisted on it, so I think it would be a little unfair to say that it is entirely them marking their own homework.

Charles Byrne: I agree completely. There are some good examples where sometimes we agree to disagree. At the moment, the Legion thinks that Gulf War syndrome is a concern; the MOD thinks that the issue is closed. We are clearly agreeing to disagree. Another case is the impact of alcohol, and the MoD has agreed to open that up again. Yes, there is that RAG status report, but there is certainly good, robust challenge and disagreement.

Mary Moreland: It is the same. Because the association is a totally voluntary organisation and we do not have paid staff, we depend very much on the more senior charity organisations and Cobseo. We were elected to the executive board of Cobseo. They feed in and use their skills set and knowledge to report back but, as Sir John said, it does not go unnoticed.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: One of the important parts of the report is that we can, and do, put in unedited comments, and the MoD cannot, and do not, edit them, so if we really felt that was a concern, we would put it there. We raised a number of issues, but overall we think that the table at the back is a reasonably fair reflection of progress.

Q77            Leo Docherty: Thank you very much. What do you think about the NAO’s finding that the MoD cannot yet confirm the charities that have spent all the LIBOR grants as intended?

General Sir John McColl: Can I start with this? First of all, I am not here to defend or deny the findings of the NAO report, which seems to me to be a very reasonable and pragmatic report. There is an impact assessment going on regarding the allocations that have been made so far. I think that 80% of them will be reported on by the end of this year, so we will have a better understanding then of the real impact.

Earlier we heard discussion that the £920 million has been spent, with nothing to show for it. I would question that. Not all of that money has gone to defence, of course, and not all of it has gone to the third sector within defence, but that which has has made a significant impact on people’s lives for the better. Furthermore, its effect has been multiplied by the fact that it has gone to organisations that rely to a huge extent—such as the two organisations to my left and right, and indeed Mary’s—on volunteers. By making statements such as, “It’s all been wasted,” you are criticising the people who have really gone the extra mile to help the Armed Forces community, and I have difficulty with that.

That is not to say that, particularly prior to 2015, as the report says, there have not been instances where that money could have been better directed, but since 2015 I found the method by which that money has been allocated, and the processes by which it is then checked in terms of meeting its objectives, to be thorough and rigorous.

To answer an earlier question about the difficulties of small charities, which I think is a really good point, we—Cobseo—consist of three and a half people, so we are a relatively small charity. We are not as small as some, which rely on one volunteer to deliver, but nevertheless we are quite small, so we have just been through this process. In fact, three of us here have all bid for LIBOR money and been successful. It might be helpful just to talk about the way in which we have done that, just to illustrate the effect it has had, and the rigour that we have had to go through to get it. Do you want to lead on that, Charles?

Charles Byrne: I suppose there are two parts: the first is the application process, which is now more rigorous. I suppose there are two parts in my mind—there is a general LIBOR fund and there is a Covenant fund and there are different levels of rigour when you apply for those. The application process is more rigorous than it used to be.

Equally important is the monitoring and reporting process, which from our point of view has always been robust and proper. There is an annual set of reports that go back saying, “This is the money that was applied for,” whether it is the aged veterans fund, the veterans hearing fund or taking D-Day veterans back to Normandy. You project the spend, and you report back on that projected spend. All of that rigour on whether the money has been well spent has always been there—certainly from the world that we look at. There are direct moneys that come through the Legion that have had a real impact. There is real benefit through to the CRM—a single database system—that the charities all share. There is very successful LIBOR funding support for that.

General Sir John McColl: Perhaps you might talk about who actually delivers it on behalf of the sector.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I was disappointed to hear some of the comments that nothing has changed. In the early days, there was a lot of pressure to get the money out, and the processes have been tightened up significantly, both in terms of assessing the bids and allocating the effect that it is having. It is right that, as part of the bid, the organisation receiving it should look to the long term and how it sustains the effect, because there is not an infinite pot, but it is a very significant pot and it is making a huge difference. The organisations have to be self-sufficient.

In terms of making the process more rigorous and making sure that the money had been best spend, there is a bit more process. There were recent general tranche applications in by 23 August that were announced by the Chancellor at the autumn statement on 22 November. I, like Charles and others, have clear processes for making sure that we are delivering against what we bid and for reporting back to Government on that basis.

Mary Moreland: I cannot add anything to that because the association has never applied for LIBOR funding.

General Sir John McColl: May I finish off on that? The NAO report about the further £141 million—

Q78            Leo Docherty: That’s my next question: what would your priorities be for that?

General Sir John McColl: That money is going to support the £10 million a year that is distributed through the Covenant fund. The Covenant fund panel receives applications for that—the applications come in to the Covenant fund team, which at the moment sits in the Ministry of Defence and is about to be made independent as a trust.

At the moment, the six priorities are families in stress, strengthening local government delivery of the Covenant, the armed forces Covenant local grants, the map of need—I can talk about that if you want to know what that is, but basically it identifies in detail the gaps in delivery—and the outcomes framework for the Covenant and additional support programmes. They have been reviewed and the new set of priorities for the next year is about to be published in February.

Those priorities are given to the Covenant fund panel by the CRG. They are debated in that: all devolved Administrations are there, as are the Government and the third sector, so we all have the opportunity to, and to say if we do not like them, which we do. That is the process. I can stop there or I can talk about small grants, if you would like.

Q79            Mrs Moon: I would like you to report to us about the gaps in need, because the Committee needs to understand that. My concern is sustainability, particularly in areas of social deprivation where there is no local community that is able to help with funding. The smaller charities may well fit a niche capability for military families that come from that community. I am worried that, because of the sustainability requirement, you can get the funding for this project but you have to build a new project to get the next tranche of money. They can’t do that. They would have to constantly end and start again. I am worried that there is no recognition that there are areas of the United Kingdom where there is no money sloshing around in the community that can fill that sustainability gap. Good projects fail because the community cannot sustain them, outside of external funds coming in. Does that make sense?

General Sir John McColl: I absolutely take the point, and I think you are right. It is a problem that is given to any grant-giving charity or trust. It is definitely true of LIBOR and it is true of the Covenant fund, but it is true of any independent trust. I sit on the Covenant fund panel on behalf of the third sector, so I see these applications come in, and I can tell you that sustainment is one of the issues that comes with them, so that question is asked. I am not saying that it is always satisfactorily answered, but it is certainly one of the issues that is looked at by the panel. Indeed, it is a really difficult staffing process. For example, for the local grants scheme we generally get about 120 applications that come in, so it is a big staffing effort, but one of the things they do look at is sustainment. I am not saying that they always get it right, and I have not got a solution to it.

Q80            Mrs Moon: But how do we ensure that areas of social deprivation are not neglected? The families who live in those areas can look at a wealthier area alongside them and see there is a riches provision because there are organisations who will help to sustain and maintain.

Charles Byrne: The national charities play a big part in this. Obviously it is easy to raise money in a wealthy area, and of course you do not always spend that money in a wealthy area. So the Legion gives out about £3.5 million in external grants to other bodies. It can to some extent meet some of that load. Some of those grants are quite small and some of the requirements are deliberately set so that entrepreneurial new initiatives can be funded. So there is a deliberate degree of flexibility in how we fund requests like that, because it allows us to provide a national lay-down of services, and that fill some of those gaps where there is not the local money to pay for those services. So the national charities play a role in that.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Certainly the demographics of the country mean that the majority of people statistically joining the Armed Forces come from urban areas, and that is where the majority return to. I am sure we will come on to transition later, which is a really important point, setting people up for success. While the majority do fine, some at some stage hit a difficult period, and it is about how we support them.

I obviously echo what Charles says. We all understand that it is no good just operating in the leafy suburbs; in many cases the need is in the inner-city areas and that is where we need to be. So when there are smaller initiatives, we need to work with them to support them, particularly to ensure that they are sustained. We work with Glasgow City Council and we run something called Glasgow’s Helping Heroes to ensure that we are supporting a community there that has some challenges.

Q81            Mrs Moon: Can I say, on behalf of Wales, that we have very few large communities? We have a few large cities, but we have got far more small and medium-sized communities that cannot sustain. In a sense, we over-recruit: we recruit far more people into the Armed Forces—particularly into the Army—for the level of our communities. It does worry me that the urban centres do much better than some of our small communities, where the vulnerabilities and the isolation are quite extreme.

General Sir John McColl: I would also make the point that the Armed Forces charity sector is quite unusual in the degree to which charities transfer money to other charities. We have, for example, what we call the three ben funds, for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and they solely give money out to other charities that deliver on their behalf. Similarly, the two charities on my left and right do the same, as well as Help for Heroes—those are the big ones. So there is a significant cross-pollination of resources. I am not saying it solves all of the problems, but I think—

Chair: We have quite a lot to get through, so I am going to have to move things on. I will bring in Martin briefly, then Ruth briefly, and then we must go back to Leo. I am sorry, but otherwise we will not get through our agenda.

Q82            Martin Docherty-Hughes: To build on Madeleine’s point about different types of communities—whether they are urban communities in the centre of Glasgow or communities such as mine, which is a suburban/rural constituency on the periphery of Glasgow—you also have communities with different skills. In the third sector, the larger charities have a large element of skill, but further down the sector, the small and medium-sized charities are wholly reliant on volunteers. Is there an opportunity for larger charities not only to share financial resources but to provide mentoring and peer support as resources, too? That is about not just sharing financial resources but improving skills to make local organisations more sustainable in the long term.

General Sir John McColl: I will pick that up from a Cobseo point of view. The environment that we are moving into, with the increased muscularity of the Charity Commission, the Information Commissioner—

Charles Byrne: The Fundraising Regulator.

General Sir John McColl: Yes. All that is making life much more difficult for small and medium-sized charities. We absolutely take that point. In fact, at the last Cobseo executive meeting we agreed that we needed to move in this area and try to find more support for small and medium-sized charities. I am glad to say that the Ministry of Defence recognised the fact that we provide significant assistance to them in looking after veterans and the Armed Forces community more broadly, so it has agreed to provide us with a secondee. We also have an additional post. Those posts will be focused on providing support for small and medium-sized charities to navigate their way through this very difficult environment. Generally speaking, the larger charities are capable of dealing with it, but the smaller charities really are not. The danger is that they will subsequently be criticised, particularly by the Charity Commission, if we do not give them support. We are aware of that, and action is being taken. It has not actually had any effect yet, because the posts are just about to be recruited to, but we are hoping to move into that area.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I am conscious of time, but further down, closer to county and community level, the co-ordination between the Royal British Legion, SSAFA and smaller local charities is actually refreshingly strong. Provided that people always remember we are there only for the person who needs assistance, which Charles and I—we speak regularly—certainly push down, it is not quite as bleak a picture as it might sometimes appear.

Mary Moreland: I totally agree. The Royal British Legion provides the association with a postal address. Being on the executive of Cobseo enables you to tap into expertise. That is very important for smaller charities because, as I said, we are volunteers. We do not necessarily have the right skillset, and getting people to come forward and volunteer, as we know, is becoming much more difficult.

Q83            Ruth Smeeth: I am really interested in the two new roles that you are going to have. One of the challenges is how you empower some of the smaller charities to engage in this way. On the new process for applying for Covenant funding, my tri-service charity, who are my charity of the year this year, are so intimidated by the paperwork and the idea of applying by computer—these are older men who have served—that they have decided not to apply until I go and sit there with them to do it.

The idea that a Member of Parliament has to go and sit there with them is crazy and shows that something is not working at a local level. I represent Stoke-on-Trent. We have got Staffordshire. Unsurprisingly, everything goes to Lichfield or Stafford, but we are a massive recruitment ground where people return, and I do not think it is working well there. This is about how you empower those very small charities locally.

General Sir John McColl: First, I am very disappointed to hear that; I am speaking now not just as the Chairman of Cobseo but as a member of the Covenant funding panel, which these applications come to. I know that the Covenant funding team hold clinics and that they are very sympathetic, but having heard what you said, I undertake to go back to them and ask them to look at their processes to see whether they can reduce them and make them less intimidating.

All I would say is that we have criticisms over here that money has been wasted and that there is no audit trail. Therefore, we perhaps corrected to a degree so that we absolutely knew where it was going as of autumn 2015. It may well be that the system has been over-corrected and is too bureaucratic. If that is the case, we certainly need to look at it. I will undertake to take that back to Melloney Poole, who runs this on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Q84            Leo Docherty: Moving on to the veterans gateway, can you give us your view of this, and tell us how you think its success should be measured? Perhaps you could comment on the volume and nature of the inquiries that it is getting.

Charles Byrne: I will take the lead on this. So far, very good: I think that is the quick answer. It has been running for eight months. As you know, there are another 16 months of the pilot to run. So far the veterans gateway has answered about 4,000 direct inquiries. That would be telephone calls, emails, webchat-type inquiries; and in addition to that there have been about 170,000 web-based inquiries. To give that a relative measure, the number of phone calls that the veterans gateway has handled is about 5% of the volume of the calls that the British Legion’s contact centre has handled.

On the one hand you could say, “Well, that’s not very much.” On the other hand I would say, “Actually, that’s really quite impressive. In eight months’ start-up it is already starting to take a share of the marketplace. If it were a commercial service that would be really impressive—every marketeer would be saying, “What have you done to go from a standing start to get that volume so quickly?”

It is early days. We have got Ulster University commissioned to provide an independent evaluation of the value for money and the impact of the veterans gateway; so in summary it is early days, but it is off to a very strong start.

Q85            Leo Docherty: Does it simply replicate the services provided by other charities?

Charles Byrne: No, is a quick answer. The intention, certainly from my understanding of the veterans gateway, is to provide that first port of call for somebody who does not know where else to turn to. So if you know you want SSAFA, Blesma or Help for Heroes you will go there. If you don’t know where to turn, the veterans gateway is exactly that point.

It seems to be working, but it will take us, probably, the two years to understand the size of that unmet need, and then we will be better able to assess. At the end of the day it provides a gateway service—as does the Legion and as does SSAFA—but it has got a very particular focus on that audience.

General Sir John McColl: I just point out that if you speak to many of the beneficiaries—the veterans—they will say that they find accessing the support available confusing, and therefore I think, self-evidently, from all that I have seen, there is a requirement for the gateway. Gradually it is building up momentum, and the first example of that is the fact that the housing helpline has just folded into it.

I think the greater proportion of people coming to the veterans gateway, the greater prominence it has, the greater the reputation it has, the more we will see of this. I hope that over time we will see a significant reduction in the number of helplines out there, and they will fold in, but I think you need to deliver more than you promise and therefore prove that you are capable of dealing with the expectations of veterans, and then people will come to you. So the first example of that has happened. I think it will be the first of many.

Q86            Leo Docherty: Can I ask if you think the Covenant is becoming too veteran-oriented, and can I ask Sir John and Mary how widows and widowers might be given more of an emphasis within the Covenant, following the warnings in your annual reports?

General Sir John McColl: Mary can lead with this.

Mary Moreland: As I said, this is the first time in the report that war widows and widowers have been recognised as an important cohort. When the veteran is no longer there, their dependents are ignored. I think the armed forces Covenant is very good, but I think an education needs to happen for the population as a whole, and perhaps Government as well, that you don’t instantly think of a family being a war widow.

The image of a war widow or widower is an older lady, and we still get it—I got it in Liverpool on Armed Forces Day: “Oh, you’re a war widow, poor thing.” Nobody wants to talk about that. It is that education, that actually we have war widows that have been widowed at 24. They are not always going to stay 24, but that 24-year-old, in the midst of bereavement and coping with death, may have to find a house, find education for her family. She may not be close to her immediate family; they may be estranged. So there are a lot of incidents that impact on service families and veterans’ families that are not necessarily translated across to war widows.

Q87            Chair: Can you tell us a little bit about what happens if a serviceperson is killed in action and the family is in service accommodation? How well or how badly do the service authorities manage the fact that that family is, presumably, going to have to relocate, on top of the tragedy they have just suffered?

Mary Moreland: I think that is probably for the likes of Andrew or the Royal British Legion, because the War Widows’ Association does not really do welfare as an element. People tend not to come—to start with, you do not think you’re a widow, initially. It is the definition of war widows. It is this image that that has to involve someone killed in action, but it is not; it is caused or hastened by service.

We have a lot of war widows coming in. Yes, you have the younger ones from Afghanistan and Iraq, but you also have the older ones who have looked after the war disablement pensioner for years and saved the country so much in care costs. Then, they are left, family has moved away, and that is where the social isolation comes in. Family has moved away, the widow is left and has to then go through this mire of bureaucracy to try and get pensions, to try and get all the paperwork. And the support, perhaps, is not there from the centre because they have moved away from their regiment or the regiment no longer exists. In my case, the Ulster Defence Regiment does not exist.

We have an exemplary service in Northern Ireland with the after-care service, but that is not always replicated. Again, you come for the devolved Administrations and the local councils and local government areas. So it is that education: that a war widow is not First World War or Second World War; there is more to being a war widow and to being in that cohort than just someone getting killed in action.

Chair: Thank you. We needed to hear that. Any other comment on that?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: May I go first to the question and then, Chairman, to your point? With regard to the question, young men and women, in my view, will only commit to serving in this nation’s armed forces if they trust that, while they are serving, they and, in due course, their families, will be appropriately supported and that when they leave, they and their families will be respected for that service and supported, if necessary.

The balance between the focus of the Covenant on serving personnel, on veterans and on families needs to be maintained. Is the pendulum about right? I think it is about right. There are specific issues—some of the issues around education are more pertinent to people while they are serving and so on—but I think it is about right.

General, on your point, you will perhaps know that I, until relatively recently, was serving. I would like to think that when, first, a tragedy like death, bereavement, happens, for whatever reason, the services treat the families sympathetically. There is a statutory 90-day period before families are meant to leave military accommodation; that is flexed in those circumstances. There are other situations also where families are put under pressure—relationship breakdown, and how the family is supported at that time. I would like to think that the families are supported. We find, and I am sure that Charles would say the same, that we get approached by families saying, “We are about to have to leave service accommodation and we need advice and help.”

Death is a hugely difficult time, as is a relationship breakdown—a slightly different circumstance—where families definitely need support, and this will always be the case.

Chair: Thank you for that. Would you like to continue, Leo, or are you done?

Leo Docherty: I am done.

Chair: Very good.

Q88            Mrs Moon: I want to move on to healthcare, if I may, although I would just throw in that in terms of war widows there are people—we forget about them—who are bereaved whose partner may have died in a road traffic accident, in training, on an exercise or at selection. There are lots of reasons. Some widows feel that the “war” bit is excluding them. The remaining challenges to be identified in the implementation are with veterans’ priority treatment. What do you see those as being? What are the real barriers that are stopping us moving forward?

Charles Byrne: In terms of veterans’ treatment, it is interesting. I suppose the answer comes in a number of parts. Thinking about the veteran community, 75% of the veteran community is over 50 years old and 50% is over 75. Some of the issues that veterans will face will typically be those of an older generation. It is therefore worth remembering those basic facts.

There are some specific issues that we raised in the Covenant report that concern us. Those are around non-freezing cold injury, which is a specific, and Gulf War syndrome, which still needs to be addressed. Those are some specific needs. More generally, the issues lie in the delivery of the services that are available. We have heard about this before. It can be difficult to navigate, and the provision of services is different between England and the devolved Administrations—and it is different even within England, depending on where you are.

While there are specific needs, the greater issues are in how people navigate their way through the inconsistencies. Having local champions lead for Covenant delivery, funded by the Covenant fund, is a very good focus. I think that the inconsistencies are probably one of the key areas to look at from my point of view.

Q89            Mrs Moon: Are you identifying anywhere in particular that is causing problems?

Charles Byrne: Geographically, no. It is just the variety. I would not pull out one specific region.

General Sir John McColl: Interestingly, I thought a question like this might come up, so I looked at one of the studies that the Forces in Mind Trust has done. You are probably aware that they have done a series of studies into mental health provision in the four different nations. Then they have done an overarching capping study. They came out with a series of findings.

The first is the lack of good data to identify exactly where there is a gap, where there is need and where resource should be focused. That is not only true in mental health; it is true for all these priorities. That is an area. The census will help identify where veterans are, as will the map of need, which is a fairly heavily resourced Covenant programme. It is designed to provide us with an identification of exactly where veterans are, what their needs are and where those needs are. I think that will help us focus.

The second priority is the linkage between national policy and local provision. In many cases, there is a disconnect there. Another area is the support in transition, and a lot of that is to do with ensuring that there is continuity of treatment after leaving service. The fourth area I have written down is access to the right treatment. In other words, that is about people finding exactly where they need to go to get the help they need. The gateway will certainly help veterans with that. If you are going to ask me for four areas, I think those are four areas where I would focus attention.

Q90            Mrs Moon: Are you identifying problems where you lose a champion? As I said earlier, one person will take ownership and they will drive something forward and it might not be the priority of the next person who comes in. Is that becoming an issue for services, especially where there are new initiatives where, if you do not have someone who is willing to pick that up and drive it, the effect is patchy?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Yes is the straight answer to that. ‘Twas ever thus.

Q91            Mrs Moon: Is there anything we can do about that?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Re-emphasise the importance of local communities understanding their armed forces community, whether serving or retired. We haven’t talked about the challenges facing reservist families, which is a very big issue. They are isolated, and away from bases and communities, but in many cases face not dissimilar pressures from regular families. It is about making sure that those champions really do energise local authorities and others. Even with that, the problem comes if you have a GP surgery that, probably through ignorance rather than any other reason, just does not understand. That is the issue facing a young wife or an ex-service person going there. Getting right down to the coalface will continue to be a challenge, and this is something that we should all champion.

Charles Byrne: Sir John’s point is absolutely right. The lack of understanding of the data surprised us. Certainly, when we started by approaching the Office for National Statistics, its response was that the data is there—that local councils, local NHS and the Government do know who our veterans are and where they are. They don’t. If we do get full Government support for including those questions in the census, at least those bodies delivering the services will start to get an understanding of the need. That will give us a really good base, and some data on which we can plan the services.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I very strongly endorse that.

General Sir John McColl: The FIMT—the one source of objective information—did a study called “Our Community—Our Covenant”. Out of that comes a recommendation on what delivery should look like—best practice at a local level. It has come out with a framework and a series of measures that it would recommend being put in place at a local level. If you link that to the funded outcomes framework assessment, which is being funded through the Covenant Fund, hopefully we will be able to see where that recommendation is and is not being put in place. I hope we will get a better handle on it, but I don’t think it will solve the problem, because personalities just move.

Q92            Mrs Moon: There is going to be a series of inspections by the Care Quality Commission of defence medical treatment facilities. Are you happy that that will meet your concerns about the MoD facilities, and will equivalent inspections take place in the devolved Administrations? One of the things that worries this Committee is that the MoD’s focus seems to be England; what the others are doing is based on, “We’ve given them the money—let them get on with it.” There is not a consistent standard right across the country.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: The Care Quality Commission has done 13 inspections so far. The results are publicly available, so I won’t comment on the results. Having a nationally recognised body inspecting is a good thing. It provides greater transparency and confidence, particularly to certain personnel of the families. Should the same happen across the United Kingdom? Of course it should, in a different way.

Q93            Mrs Moon: But why has that not been set up?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I think you would have to ask the Ministry of Defence about that. It is not really a question to ask us, with respect.

Q94            Mrs Moon: I just wondered if you knew; when they said they were going to do it, I thought that would be one of the first things asked. Never mind.

Mental health: how happy are you that there is consistency of access to quality services across the Administrations?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Mental health is a challenge that, thankfully, there is a growing awareness of, and the stigma around talking about the issues is being slowly removed. That is a very good thing for serving personnel, families and veterans. We see more people presenting, and that must be a good thing. Is there consistency? I fear there will always be a degree of variability. We certainly find that we get some referrals. Provided we have the appropriate links at local level to the right organisation, we think we can pass them on. Is it better than it was? My judgment would be that it is improving.

General Sir John McColl: On your question about the differentiation in delivery across the country, I asked Combat Stress to give me some detail on that, because I thought that question would come up. Their perspective—I can give you the details—is that in England, Scotland and Wales there are veteran-specific services associated with mental health that deliver. Northern Ireland is a separate issue because of the difficulty, owing to their equality legislation, in providing differentiated treatment for veterans. I can talk about that again, if you like.

Interestingly enough, in England we have the newly launched transition, intervention and liaison system. It was only launched in 2017, so we do not really know whether that is delivering. It is one of those things that we need to measure if we are to make sure that it delivers. In our dialogue with the NHS, we told them that.

I have to say that Scotland, according to Combat Stress, seems to be doing a good job in providing veterans’ mental health services, and is very well resourced. In Wales, they have access to Veterans NHS Wales, where I understand that 12 out-patient sessions are offered in the case of PTSD, one to one. The difficulty with that is that it is based in Cardiff, and there is therefore difficulty of access for those in mid-Wales, and certainly for those in north Wales. Also, there is no funding for residential care, which there is in Scotland.

Q95            Mrs Moon: That is a major problem.

General Sir John McColl: There is also no provision for group therapy for those who would benefit from it. The detailed answer to your question is that it would seem that there is a differentiation in provision, and in some areas of the United Kingdom it would seem that some veterans are being disadvantaged, even in comparison with other veterans elsewhere in the United Kingdom, which is unfortunate.

Q96            Mrs Moon: May I add a further question? Are we placing some of the Armed Forces charities in the invidious position in which they are being contracted by Administrations to provide services, particularly in relation to mental health, and finding themselves having to say no to someone because they live in the wrong part of the country for a service that they are providing in another part of the country? I have certainly come across that as a Welsh MP.

General Sir John McColl: I suppose the straight answer to that is yes, on the basis that, for example, Combat Stress is unable to provide residential care in parts of the United Kingdom because its contract has been terminated for that, whereas in Scotland there is continued funding for residential care, which Combat Stress is providing. In that example, a veteran would be disadvantaged by being in certain parts of England, as compared with Scotland. They would be similarly placed in terms of the offer in Wales, because there is no residential offer there either. So yes, it is variable.

Charles Byrne: That just shows you the challenge for a charity. If you start providing contracted services and become reliant on that funding, and if that is your only funding, you really have no ability to flex and change beyond that. That is a real risk for some charities.

Q97            Martin Docherty-Hughes: We are going from one extreme to another; a Scottish MP is about to ask you about the service pupil premium. Do you agree that the service pupil premium of £300 should be increased, and if you do, to what?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: As I understand it, about £22.5 million is spent on the service pupil premium for 75,000 people. Where it is used well—this goes back to your previous session—I think it is very effective. I do not have a specific view about whether it should be increased. I support the families federations’ view that extending the range of eligible pupils is more important, and educating schools about the best way of spending the premium is probably more effective than increasing it. That is my view.

Martin Docherty-Hughes: Thank you.

Q98            Ruth Smeeth: I would love to say that this is going to be a short question, but it is about accommodation, so I doubt it will be. Why has accommodation been such a serious problem, and how should the MoD go about fixing it? Really short and sweet.

General Sir John McColl: I will let my colleague lead on that.

Charles Byrne: No, no; you go ahead.

General Sir John McColl: I think I am right in saying that, after financial issues, accommodation is the top problem for both serving personal and veterans. Why is it a continuing problem? Your question is mainly focused on the serving community, I think.

Ruth Smeeth: It really is.

General Sir John McColl: Well, I was responsible for the Army estate a little over 10 years ago—I was amused by the questions to do with Carillion, because we had exactly the same problems then. It is fundamentally long-term underfunding—as simple as that. Put that right, and you get what you pay for.

Q99            Ruth Smeeth: As with everything in the MoD. I think we can all agree that that is exactly what all of this is. I am going to move on from accommodation, unless anyone else wants to say anything. We talked about it intensively with the previous panel.

How effective is the Covenant in business? I know you are all going to give me examples of how well some companies are doing with the Covenant, but I think that for too many it is a tick-box exercise. I would be interested to know how well you think the Covenant in business is doing. What could we be doing almost to re-launch the Covenant?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: The Covenant report celebrates the 2,000th signatory to the Covenant in business, which was O2.

Q100       Ruth Smeeth: And how many companies are there in the country?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: How many companies are there in—

Ruth Smeeth: It is wonderful to say that there are 2,000, but—

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: This has grown from a germ of an idea. Where it works well—where there is genuine engagement by a company in looking at the strands, their signature, how they are supporting service personnel and families, how they are supporting and encouraging reservists, how they are supporting the transition process for service leaders, and how they are supporting military charities—it is very good. Some companies have refreshed their signature and re-signed as they better understand the mutual benefit from this—and there is benefit. I can produce some examples, and I am sure Charles can too, of companies that are very proactive. The challenge is, exactly as you say, to make sure it doesn’t just become something they can put on their letterhead and use without delivering. We all have a part to play—the Ministry of Defence has a part to play—in making sure that, where people have signed, there is proactive energy.

The good examples are very good. There is then the challenge of getting to the huge number of small and medium-sized enterprises. There have been a number of initiatives, but that is more difficult. Some at the national level and some at the regional level are going well. There is ongoing progress. As John mentioned, it comes back to the narrative—getting rid of the mad, bad, sad image of veterans. These are people, whether they are reservists, serving or veterans, who have values and skills to offer society, as have their families. That is what the nation needs to understand. The narrative is key.

Charles Byrne: Once we start the dialogue, the relationships always get deeper and better. In some cases, even if it starts as a tick-box—it looks like an easy thing to do—if it gives us an opportunity to get in and explain the mutual value, it works. It is just a huge piece of work that will take more time. I see the best behaviour where it is local businesses that have a standing in the community and care about what their neighbourhood thinks about them. That is where they get the best traction.

Q101       Ruth Smeeth: This is to the larger charities: do you use your sway and your pull to encourage people to do this—your supply chain, your partners locally—as part of the Covenant?

Charles Byrne: Absolutely.

Q102       Ruth Smeeth: And what success are you having, as a percentage of that?

Charles Byrne: Most of our major partners are hugely supportive. I can’t think of anybody who isn’t, in all honesty.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Once they understand, particularly if they are not in defence-related sectors, the benefits these people have to offer—it is not just supporting a charity; it is a mutual business benefit, and it is about outputs and outcomes—they then cascade it down their supply chain. It takes time, and some are more effective at it than others.

General Sir John McColl: On your point about what proportion of businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, across the country are engaged in this, the answer is: relatively few. One of the reasons for that is this idea that veterans are, in some way, a burden on society, rather than a benefit to it. It is a huge objective to change the national perspective. The majority of the people who come out of the services and go into civilian life—95% of them—add enormous value to the country.

We were really delighted that one of the first things the Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board did was take on board that it was its problem—and not just an MoD problem; it’s a national and therefore a Government problem—to change that perspective. If you think about it, if you are changing the perspective on a supermarket, it takes a huge amount of resource, time and effort. It is not something you can do by just issuing a series of questions or defence responses to MoD personnel. It is a huge, cross-Government effort, and I will be interested to see the communications strategy when it comes out early this year, because it needs to be a big piece of work if it is to make this happen. We are all going to be taking a great interest in it.

Q103       Ruth Smeeth: Maybe there is a wider conversation here, but I am convinced that the MoD are putting similar pressure on their supply chain. I am not convinced the rest of Government are doing the same, in terms of signing up to the Covenant along with their supply chain. That is something that—speaking as chair of the all-party Covenant group in this place—we will be progressing.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Something these lead Ministers should pick up.

Ruth Smeeth: All of them—exactly.

Charles Byrne: The response is just so positive generally. The more we engage—I was thinking, as you did, about some of the supermarkets—the greater the enthusiasm we are met with. It is a very open door, particularly when you share stories of the work that we do and the people we work with. It is a very open door.

Ruth Smeeth: Please God we’ll run out of veterans to place.

Q104       Mr Francois: I am pleased to hear the Covenant in business is doing so well. How much progress has been made on a greater level of regional consistency in local authorities’ implementation of the Covenant? At ground level, local authorities have an important role to play, not least in veterans’ housing. How much consistency is there now across the country?

Charles Byrne: Just to quickly lead off, as Sir John said earlier, it is something that is improving. Covenant funding of the Covenant officers, or whatever they are called, in local governments is a sensible, helpful initiative. It is improving. Again, coming back to our earlier conversation, it is very hard to measure, but those posts funded from the Covenant fund are valuable.

General Sir John McColl: The FIMT report “Our Community, Our Covenant”, and the framework it produced and the checklist of things that needed to be in place towards delivery, was robust. That is not in place everywhere, which is why they had to come up with it, but it is in place in some places. Developing that across the country is a huge undertaking, but I do think the Covenant-funded output measurement project will enable us to do that. Once we have done that—and linked to the fact that we have Ministers who can to try to get some traction and get it delivered down the chain—hopefully we will do more. At the moment, if you read that report, you will come to the same conclusion that I did: that it is extremely patchy.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: And it comes back also to this challenge of changing personalities. You have an energetic champion who is then moved and you have to start again, and that is a problem.

General Sir John McColl: Of course it is best where you have a large military community. In somewhere like Colchester, there would be a strong and vibrant link. However, if you analyse where the veterans are, actually quite a lot of them are in Liverpool and Manchester, where there is very little. That is probably where you need that stronger relationship. That is the area where I hope, when we get the map of needs, we will be able to particularly focus effort to be able to rectify the shortcomings that currently exist.

Q105       Mr Francois: Other than the provision of housing for veterans, what else can local government do? Where can it really add value in terms of implementing the Covenant?

Ruth Smeeth: I asked that.

Mrs Moon: And me. Social care services and support for anybody with a disability is just falling apart at the moment right across the country.

Ruth Smeeth: You missed your opportunity.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Am I allowed to come in retrospectively?

Ruth Smeeth: Yes.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I think the biggest issue is ensuring that some of the particular challenges that people who have served in the armed forces and their families have had to deal with during that service are understood by local authorities. I am very sorry I was slow on the uptake, but I am catching up. That, as well as the housing issue that you rightly flag up, would be where I would ask local authorities particularly to champion these issues among their delivery organisations.

General Sir John McColl: And also transition in terms of education.

Charles Byrne: But that comes back to the national issue about having the data so that local authorities know. Again, if we can get the census data, that will give the local authorities the tools they need to understand better the needs they have.

Q106       Mr Francois: You mentioned the census a number of times. It is clearly very important.

Charles Byrne: Absolutely.

Mary Moreland: It is important that local authorities, when they are talking about veterans, have that education that war widows are part of the veterans community. It is about continually reinforcing that.

General Sir John McColl: I am at the edge of my knowledge here, but surely health is another area.

Mrs Moon: It is devolved.

General Sir John McColl: Yes, but there is a local element to that in terms of waiting lists and priorities allocated, particularly in terms of transition and those who are deserving of special provision, which includes the war widows and those who have been most seriously injured.

Charles Byrne: There is a difficult piece of work to be done around understanding the requirements for almost preferential treatment and getting the local health authorities to understand what is required and what preferential treatment means. Work has been done, and the MoD has tried to explain it, but still we get feedback that says that there is not a great understanding within the NHS of what is required under the Covenant and what preferential treatment means. The name itself is confusing at times.

Q107       Martin Docherty-Hughes: Building on part of Mark’s question, what more could be done through the Covenant to improve the transition from service to civilian life?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: I am going to start on that. We think it is really important. Yesterday we launched—it was slightly overshadowed by other news stories—a two-year trial to work with the Ministry of Defence, the Army and the Career Transition Partnership to provide a mentoring service for those service leavers who might benefit from a bit more understanding of what civilian life means. As John has said, almost everyone who serves in the military is better for that service. They have values and skills that they can transfer. Some 50% of people who leave the armed forces have served for six years or less, so there is a significant cohort—mainly young men in their early to mid-20s—who come out with confidence and ambition but probably do not understand the environment they are going into, particularly because during their service they have been clothed, housed, fed and supported. When they come out of that protective environment, notwithstanding their values and value to society, sometimes life goes wrong. We think this trial might catch some of those who are fundamentally good people, but who just do not understand the dynamics. We will see how that goes. There are two things. The first is the importance of changing the narrative so that these service levers are seen as benefits to society. The second is ensuring that that is understood across society.

General Sir John McColl: I will just add one thing to that, and that is the issue of housing. As we have heard, apart from finance, housing is the second most important issue, not just for the serving but also for the veterans. We would wish to see a process rather similar to the career transition partnership to do with housing. At the moment, housing is not treated with the same kind of care for those who are transitioning as employment is. We would wish to see a similar process. That recommendation comes from the Cobseo Housing Cluster. You are probably aware that within Cobseo we have a series of clusters to do with specific issues. This one, the housing cluster, has 40 members, which include local housing authorities as well as all the charities that deal with housing. Their view is that they are receiving a lot of people who have not actually been prepared properly for that transition process. We would like to see that whole process given some rigour, some structure and some resource to make sure that they are properly prepared. At the moment, unless you have a little bit of money and you want to put down a deposit on a house or go into the Help to Buy scheme or something like that, there really is no provision for those who simply want to go and take advantage of social housing or to rent. There should be, and there isn’t.

Q108       Martin Docherty-Hughes: Can I maybe take that a little further, reflecting back on one of the earlier questions about inconsistencies and local authorities? My own example, coming from a Scottish constituency—Andrew, you will know about it from when you work with Glasgow City Council—is that local authorities are more than just local government. The national priority system is an outcome-led system through the single outcome agreements, where you have housing providers, health and social care, the third sector—the whole gambit around one table. Is that a model in which there is a learning opportunity to help, not just if you a member of the armed forces but if you are a member of an armed forces family going back into civilian life? Is that a good way of looking at it: get everyone around the same table in terms of a holistic approach?

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: Once again, the answer is, absolutely. What we are finding, certainly when people come to us in SSAFA, and I am sure Charles would say the same for the Royal British Legion, is that the problems they face are complicated and multifaceted, and to say it is just mental wellbeing or it is just housing or just debt is oversimplistic. This relates to getting people around the table who can address some of the mental welfare issues and the whole range of other challenges that people face. For veterans and their families who have lived in this community and then find it difficult to adjust, the ability to have a single point of contact—at Glasgow’s Helping Heroes, our housing adviser is one of the busier people but can advise on alcohol, drugs, debt and mental wellbeing—is absolutely the model and we would all support that. I could not agree with you more.

Q109       Chair: Is there any last point that any of you would like to make to us while you have the opportunity?

Mary Moreland: It is the need to raise the profile of war widows and the definition of war widows, and the need to make them feel a valued part of the veterans community and to educate the wider community that they are valuable. They have careers that some may have given up when they have been with their partner serving.

Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory: As the number of people in the armed forces reduces and the size of the veterans community reduces, making sure we have the narrative to explain what these individuals have done, how their families have supported them and the value they offer society has never been more important.

General Sir John McColl: I think it is extremely important that we retain a strong interface between Government and the third sector. The service charity sector is, according to the Charity Commission, the best co-ordinated in terms of collective working together of all of the sectors. So we have a huge amount to offer. We also have a turnover of about £850 million. There is a huge benefit to the work that collectively the volunteers and the charities are doing on behalf of the veterans and the armed forces community more broadly. This kind of solid engagement between the Government and third sector is hugely important if we are to achieve the right benefit and outcome for our beneficiaries.

Charles Byrne: One of the common themes we have heard today is the complexity, whether the differentiation is between the different nations or across a nation in terms of service. It is tempting to look for a single solution to solve that. I think that will never happen. What we have in the military sector is very good co-ordination and collaboration across the military charities. We need to keep and maintain that, because I think that fundamentally helps focus the support on the communities that we are looking for. That is a good thing and we are proud of that and we will continue to work in that way.

Q110       Chair: We will end on that positive note. Thank you all very much.