AFC0049
Written evidence submitted by Portsmouth City Council.
Introduction: Portsmouth is the home of the Royal Navy, and the armed forces is a significant part of the fabric of the city. At the last estimate over 37,000 people living in Portsmouth were members of the armed forces community (either currently serving, a veteran, reservist, or immediate family’s members of) – that is about 18% of the population. Portsmouth City Council is committed to supporting the armed forces community and first signed the Armed Forces Covenant in 2012 as a promise to recognise the unique sacrifices that they make to support the nation and ensure that no member of the armed forces community should face disadvantage compared to other citizens. Since then, we have worked to the best of our ability to strengthen Covenant delivery locally, regionally and nationally.
1.1 People - Most local authorities including Portsmouth, have designated contacts in place to support with Covenant delivery, in the form of a Lead Officer, and Elected Member Champion. This provides the local Armed Forces Community with specified individuals to reach out too and ensures that the needs of the community remain considered within local decision-making. Locally we have ensured these positions have been supported by role descriptors, which helps to manage expectations, whilst also ensuring consistency of delivery.
1.2 Local Collaboration - Locally Portsmouth City Council has good relationships with our neighbouring authorities and has been working in partnership to strengthen Covenant delivery for several years through the formation of the Solent Armed Forces Covenant Partnership Board (bringing together six local authorities). There are several workstreams that are held within the SAFCBP; this includes work to support veterans in the criminal justice system through the pan Hampshire Veterans Liaison and Diversion steering group. The SAFCPB has established a clear line of governance that connects to the central MoD Covenant team ensuring that our work locally remains cognisant and connected to wider aims and objectives.
1.3 Wider Collaboration - Our work locally has been reinforced by our connection to wider regional and national work to deliver the Covenant which includes the Veterans Positive Pathways programme, now Thrive Together, membership of South-East Reserve and Cadet Association (SERFCA), Ministry of Defence Local Authority [Education] Partnership (MODLAP), the National Covenant Action Group (CAG), and the Local Government Association (LGA). This has enabled us to work together with other key stakeholders to identify and collectively address disadvantage within the Armed Forces community at a strategic level, further supporting our operational and tactical work locally.
1.4 Understanding Need - At the heart of our ability to provide a good response to members of the Armed Forces community has been our work to assess local need. We have now undertaken two joint strategic needs assessments (2018 & 2022), enabling us to draw in local data from a range of sources to support local action planning. This work has been further supported by the release of Armed Forces census data, which has enabled us to compare local intelligence with the ONS sets. Moving forward we would like to see better interoperability between data sources.
1.5 Armed Forces Covenant Trust (AFCT) - The work of the SAFCPB work has been further enabled by funding from the Armed Forces Covenant Trust Fund, which over the years has facilitated dedicated resources and development of local veteran drop-in provision. Without the opportunities provided by the AFCT we would not have been able to try new things such as our current work to develop an Early year's cluster working with service children under 4 years, or to deliver upon essential elements such as our 2018 & 2022 needs assessments.
1.6 National Research & Resources - Our work has been enhanced by the work of organisations such as the Forces in Mind Trusts (FiMT) Our Community, Our Covenant and Decade of the Covenant reports, which provide blueprints and resources for effective delivery. We have also benefited from Covenant training modules developed by Warwickshire Council. We are also aware that a range of other Covenant training and resources have been developed by other organisations and feel it would help with clarity of message and consistency of delivery if there was a single centrally approved approach moving forward.
1.7 Clarity of focus - The Armed Forces Act 2021, and subsequent statutory guidance, has provided us with some additional focus, and helped to cement activity. It has also reinforced the platform for discussion around the unique needs of the Armed Forces Community and the responsibilities we and others have in ensuring that we are demonstrating ‘due regard’. We think there is still room for development in this area, particularly in ensuring consistency of response across all bodies in range, against the existing duty before it is extended any further.
1.8 The Defence Employer's Recognition Scheme - The DERS has gained notable traction within the last 5 years and is a good mechanism for encouraging all employers to be thinking ‘forces’. As numbers of DERS award holders continue to grow, we think more investment may be required to ensure that the most is made of opportunities presented by this scheme. We welcome the development of the Gold Award Association (GAA) and think there is more that could be done to connect this work to the Reserve Force Cadet Associations and National Defence Relationship Management (DRM) work, to maximise participation, improve communication and reduce any confusion.
2.1 Consistency - Despite the great work that has taken place locally, regionally and nationally, there is a lack of consistency of offer which compounds the challenges faced by members of the Armed Forces Community. Service families experience a different offer depending on where they live, and that can make it difficult to support them at times of transition. It would be good to see more central co-ordination when it comes to service children moving schools due to deployment. There are also resources that could make more of a difference like the MODLAP shared principles for supporting children with SEND, or projects like Festival of Friends if they were consistently applied nationally.
2.2 Policy - There are areas where current MoD policy inadvertently compounds issues and adds pressure on already overwhelmed local services. Locally we have seen an increase in veterans with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) seeking support, despite having served our country the required period to have obtained British citizenship. Working with Veterans who are NRPF, adds an additional layer of complexity to what are already often complex cases. We think this could be an avoidable issue, if there was an automatic pathway to citizenship facilitated whilst in service, reinforced by MoD policy to ensure no discharge without either citizenship, or secured alternative position. This would mitigate some of the additional disadvantage faced by this cohort of veterans whilst enabling us to focus our resources on forming a team around them in partnership with other local services to address issues such as employment, housing, mental health and substance misuse.
2.3 Cross Government-working - The Covenant by its nature is a cross-cutting theme, extending across departmental boundaries and requiring them to work together. During implementation of the Covenant duty, there was a missed opportunity for communication to be delivered from all relevant departments. This led to a situation where in some instances it fell to us as local authorities to inform some other specified bodies that they were also in scope of the duty. Moving forward more work is needed to ensure that all relevant government departments are taking responsibility for ensuring statuary obligations are communicated and upheld.
2.4 Families - For all good reasons there has been a lot of focus on supporting veterans, increasing numbers of reserves, and more recently strengthening the cadet forces. Family members do not appear to get the same attention, despite the disadvantages they face, and their important role in supporting serving personnel. We would like to see more focus on key areas such as developing supportive spousal employment and ensuring that GP's practices are thinking about the needs of forces families, as much as they are now thinking about the need to ask if someone is a veteran.
2.5 Funding - The lack of acknowledgement from central government about what it takes to effectively deliver against the current requirements of the Covenant has inhibited what can be achieved. Whilst locally we have persevered, being creative and resourceful in an attempt mitigate against this, it is not a sustainable position. We have seen a reduction in practical support notably from our neighbouring county council, as financial pressures necessitate them to focus only on statutory duty across the spectrum of their service delivery.
2.6 Access to support - The Armed Forces community remain very well serviced when it comes to specific voluntary and community sector provision. It had been hoped that the veterans gateway would help veterans navigate the many organizations that support them, however failing this we have ended up with a vacuum in terms of providing a coordinated response. Small, localised projects such as Forces Connect have emerged offering a directory of support, but do not offer the breadth of what is needed in terms of a coordinated response. There is an opportunity through the currently mobilising thrive together programme to create regional support pathways, connected to local and national Covenant structures.
3.1 Co-ordinated community response - Whilst there is a lot of activity in the Covenant space, more is needed to consider the interconnectivity, in a way that ensures that collaboration, communication and information exchange among key agencies is occurring and effective.
3.2 Capacity - The lack of consistent central funding for Covenant delivery has led to limited capacity to deliver the existing duty within local authorities who are central to its success. Any further extension to duty needs to be supported with clear guidance and adequate funding, to prevent further strain on already stretched services.
3.3 Information sharing - more work is needed to develop sustainable methods for understanding need. This includes data collection, and information sharing amongst key stakeholders and development of interoperability so that we can ensure that we are targeting resources effectively and better monitoring the outcomes of our collective efforts.
4.1 More work is required to consistently embed the existing legislation nationally. Rather than introducing new, legislative requirements at this time, the focus should be on enabling all stakeholders to deliver effectively within existing frameworks. This would enable local authorities to build upon best practice without adding unnecessary burden and allow a space for more consideration and co-production about how any future changes to legislation could be made most effectively.
24th January 2025