Written evidence submitted by #JoiningForces Group.

Introduction

1.              #JoiningForces is an informal group of ‘Forces Friendly’ organisations, set up in 2023 to support delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant, capture and share good practice and collaborate on practical projects and activities. Current work is focussed on a ‘Measuring our Social Value’ pilot project to agree a common set of Themes, Outcomes and Metrics to evaluate the social impact of organisations’ work to support the Armed Forces community. Brigadier (Retired) Andrew Jackson chairs the #JoiningForces Group and is the author of this paper, submitted on behalf of the organisations listed at Appendix A, all of whom are signatories to the Armed Forces Covenant. See paras 7-11 below for more about the group and the pilot project.

2.              We have considered the research and documents listed below in the preparation of this submission:

1. The MOD’s annual reports to Parliament[1].
2. The Forces in Mind Trust’s 2022 ‘A Decade of the Covenant’ report[2] and, of note, the report’s conclusion that it was unable to assess the impact of 10 years of the Armed Forces Covenant due to a lack of usable data.
3. Deloitte, The Forces In Mind Trust and The Forces Employment Charity’s recent ‘Veterans Work: Then and Now’ report[3] (the third in the series), which provides valuable evidence on employment of veterans.
4. The Office for Veterans Affairs ‘Perceptions of UK armed forces ex-service personnel’ report[4], published in late 2023, which concluded that support and opportunities were available but significant issues were evident over their visibility and access. This reinforced evidence from the Government’s 2014 Veterans Transition Review[5] showing a negative perception held by 92% of the British public that veterans are physically, psychologically or emotionally damaged by their military service.

3.              Outside the Service charity sector, few organisations report on the impact of their work to support the Armed Forces community. However, there is growing interest to both measure and publish such data. This is driven by 3 primary factors:

●       Government requirements to evaluate the social value of tenders for contracts, applying a minimum overall weighting of 10% to bidders’ responses;

●       Organisations’ need, internally, to maximise the benefit - especially in terms of Return on Investment (ROI) and hold themselves accountable for delivery of their pledges;

●       Organisations’ need, externally, to support the Armed Forces community and be recognised for doing so.

Analysis

4.              From the evidence of the above research and the collective experience of our organisations, we submit that:

1. The Armed Forces Covenant works well in that it is:

●       A focal point on which to align policy and coordinate activity, especially across the public and Third sectors.

●       A laudable initiative with significant potential to benefit members of the military community, including ensuring their fair treatment and improving their wellbeing, especially in the process of transition from military to civilian life.

●       A means to secure the commitment of public, private and Third sector organisations to support the Armed Forces community.

b.               The Armed Forces Covenant works less well or is failing in that:

●       Organisations are not being held accountable for delivery of their pledges.

●       While there is evidence of progress, it is slow and of low impact relative to the increasing number of supportive organisations. For example, despite significant pan-Government effort and resources, awareness of the Covenant and the commitment of private sector businesses is low. 12,500 signatories of the Covenant represents just 0.6% of UK limited companies (excluding sole traders)[6].

●       Like its predecessor initiative, Supporting Britain's Reservists and Employers (SaBRE), the MOD’s focus is on Service Leavers, Reserves & Cadets and, to an extent, spouses and families (as an aid to retention). There is a lesser focus on, and consequently a risk of failing,  veterans and the wider Armed Forces community.

●       The Covenant lacks impact and is failing to realise its potential. As the research above reveals, there is a significant gap between levels of activity and impact. For example, assuming the Veterans Work report is representative, then around half of working age veterans (i.e. around 500,000 people):

●       Fail to secure a job before leaving the Armed Forces;

●       Struggle to find fitting roles (rising to 63% of female veterans);

●       Accepted lower salaries in civilian roles;

●       Have failed to progress in seniority.

c.              In our considered view, the causes of these failings are:

●       Success is measured and reported in Annual Reports to Parliament in terms of activity (i.e.the number of signatories and awards presented through the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (DERS)[7]), not in terms of the (social) impact of the Covenant on the Armed Forces community it is designed to benefit.

●       The Covenant has not progressed; it is unchanged since its launch 14 years ago. It remains a largely bureaucratic exercise, its value and benefits all too often invisible to individual members of the Armed Forces community.

●       Responsibility for veterans has flip-flopped between the Cabinet Office and the MOD. The arbitrary line of demarcation of responsibilities (between Service leavers and veterans) at the 2 years’ post discharge point has led to confusion, inter-departmental tensions and is not in the interests of veterans and their families. (We note the recent move of the OVA from the Cabinet Office to the MOD).

●       Signatories receive little practical return for their investment and, aside of recognition awards, few tangible benefits. Theoretically an equitable commitment, the Covenant is  weighted heavily in favour of the interests of the MOD. While the DERS is attractive to organisations - especially those in the private sector - it is more a measure of alignment of policy than recognition of added value (to the military community).

●       The perceived benefit of employing ex-Service people is not realised in a commercial way. Our experience is that we, and our clients, benefit from the positive influence that a military mindset brings to our organisations - in both tangible (bottom line) and non-tangible (attitude and people skills) terms.

●       The DERS[8] is flawed. As its title indicates, it is employment (not Covenant) centric and focuses on support  to Defence outputs, rather than impact upon the wider Armed Forces community. As the number of recipients grows, the MOD’s difficulty managing signatories and award holders is apparent. The DERS also has a ‘ceiling’ effect; i.e. once at Gold level it offers no incentive thereafter.

●       The ‘Gold Awards Association’(GAA) is ineffectual, its regional structure does not align with large, virtual or e_commerce businesses and it has delivered little in return for the investment of time, energy and resources of its members. Beyond provision of support (patchy at best) to those seeking to achieve higher levels of DERS awards, the GAA has failed to realise the opportunity to foster and enable collaboration and communications between more than 1,000 of the most engaged ‘Forces Friendly’ organisations.

●       Significant support and opportunities are available for members of the Armed Forces community but, as the OVA’s ‘Public Perceptions’ report[9] concluded, there are significant issues over their visibility and accessibility. Of note, the report concluded that the single best way ‘to improve public perceptions of UK armed forces ex-service personnel [and their wellbeing] is to increase the visibility of support available’.

●       The abundance of energy, enthusiasm, resources and appetite for collaborative activity available within signatory organisations, is underutilised or wasted. For example, with the exception of the ‘Ideas for Best Practice’ guidance[10],  there is little effort to  capture and share good practice and provide tools or toolkits[11] to enable and support organisations’ delivery of Covenant pledges.

5.              Additional anecdotal evidence of low awareness of the Covenant in both the public and private sectors is indicative of a general failure to communicate the benefits of the Covenant to organisations and members of the Armed Forces community alike. 2 examples summarise the views of many:

●       At a recent seminar in Glasgow[12], a senior NCO from the Royal Regiment of Scotland who had completed his Career Transition Workshop and other briefings and was shortly due to be discharged said, to a stunned audience of Covenant signatories:

“I’ve heard of the Covenant, but I have no idea what it means to me, my family or the organisations that have signed it. I could not tell you what the business needs to do to achieve the levels they are at and how that affects us”.

●       Similarly, another veteran reports:

“I have personally been exposed to the lack of awareness of the Armed Forces Covenant and the impacts on treatment by the NHS in both general medical and dental services”. 

6.              In sum, the Armed Forces Covenant has yet to realise its potential and is at risk of becoming a meaningless, box-ticking exercise of limited value to the community it is designed to serve. The lack of accountability, failure to assess its impact and to provide an easy means for members of the military community to find ‘Forces Friendly’ organisations and the support and opportunities they offer has led to increasing cynicism, especially amongst veterans. Before organisations lose interest, it is time to reform the Covenant, encourage and enable collaboration and offer them a higher value return on their investment.

Recommendations

7.              We offer 3 recommendations that we believe will significantly improve the value of the Covenant to members of the Armed Forces community and supportive organisations alike:

Recommendation 1. Redressing the Imbalance and Accountability. In order to offer a more equitable partnership between Defence and Covenant signatories, we recommend that:

a.              Either the MOD or a suitable external organisation is empowered to provide an evaluation of the social value  Covenant signatories add to the Armed Forces community they have pledged to support. Such an evaluation would be of significant value to signatories; it would recognise organisations for their work and be of positive benefit to the bottom lines of their businesses, especially those bidding for government contracts.

b.              If the DERS is to be retained, it should recognise organisations in terms of the social value they add to the Armed Forces community.

c.              Annual Reports to Parliament include assessments of the Covenant’s impact on members of the military community, in addition to or instead of measures of activity.

d.              Data and evaluations are made available publicly.

Recommendation 2. Scaling the Covenant. In order to raise awareness and secure the commitment of a wider cross-section of businesses, we recommend that:

a.              The proposed Armed Forces Commissioner should use the Armed Forces Covenant as a benchmark, against which progress - for example on welfare and housing issues - can be judged. It is highly surprising that the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill 2024-2025[13] makes no mention of the Covenant.

b.              The GAA is dissolved and replaced by a bespoke, MOD endorsed initiative or membership style organisation designed to foster and enable collaboration amongst private sector businesses, capture and share best practices and overcome barriers.[14]

c.              Any such organisation be led by its members and charged, inter alia, with responsibility to increase awareness of and commitment to the Covenant from their suppliers, clients, partners and business communities.

Recommendation 3. Improving visibility of available support and opportunities. Noting the failure of the Veterans’ Gateway, we recommend that:

a.              The MOD collaborates with industry to help bring the Covenant to life (see point b below) and actively promote its benefits to organisations and across the full breadth of the Armed Forces community.

b. The MOD supports or endorses the development of an external technology platform to provide ‘one place’ for members of the Armed Forces community to find Forces Friendly organisations, discover more about their work and access their opportunities. This should replace the Veterans Gateway and the replacement Veterans Gateway Directory (also now defunct).

c.              The platform is also used as a means to capture organisational data and provide the inputs for calculations of the social impact of signatories; a valuable return to offer Covenant signatories for their work.

#JoiningForces

8.              In order to support the work of the Office for Veterans Affairs and MOD, a group of Armed Forces Covenant signatories agreed in 2023 to collaborate under the #JoiningForces banner to:

[a] Measure the social value of their work to support the Armed Forces community, individually and collectively;

[b] Capture and share good practice;

[c] Contribute positively to the MOD’s review and Defence Select Committee Parliamentary Inquiry.

9.              A ‘Measuring our Social Value’ pilot project has been established, initially to agree KPIs and metrics against the set themes of the Armed Forces Covenant (see para 11 below). Thereafter, and once participating organisations have completed their own evaluations, other signatories will be invited to share their data and publish evidence of the social impact of their Armed Forces programmes and activity. The same measures will apply to evaluation of the ‘The Top 50 GREAT British Employers of Veterans’ publication.

10.              In the absence of an established methodology to assess the maturity and social value of organisations’ work to support the military community, #JoiningForces partners have collaborated to  develop a ‘Covenant Social Value Framework’©[15]. It comprises a 4 step evaluation process:

Step 1: Signed a pledge to support the Armed Forces Community;

Step 2: Delivered activities aligned to relevant Covenant themes;

Step 3: Captured activity data and outputs;

Step 4: Assessed total social value generated.

11.              Organisations are invited to capture and submit data and other evidence to measure outputs of activity designed to deliver their pledges and support people from across the 2m strong UK Armed Forces community of working age. Data is captured against the 7 set Covenant themes:

1. Employment
2. Communications, engagement and outreach
3. Commercial
4. Health and healthcare
5. Housing
6. Education
7. Civic responsibilities

12.  For Step 4, the financial valuation is calculated using the formula [Wellbeing Value + Exchequer Value - Deadweight = Total Social Value]. This will be of value to support internal business cases, CSR reporting and to evidence bids for government contracts.

Summary

13. The Armed Forces Covenant is a welcome initiative. However, without usable data, it is impossible to assess its impact on the military community it is designed to benefit. The number of supportive organisations continues to increase but evidence suggests that, while they usually sign with the best of intentions, they struggle or are not incentivised to implement programmes to deliver their pledges. In some cases, organisations do little more than sign the Covenant or do the minimum to acquire DERS awards. It is time to review and refresh the Covenant, for the MOD to partner (properly) with the most engaged and supportive organisations and give it the energy, enthusiasm and - most importantly - tools to bring it to life.

14.  There is significant room for improvement and to realise the Covenant’s full potential. Capturing and sharing data and good practice is key to success. To add value and help change behaviours, measuring output against the 7 set Covenant themes will help organisations, individually and collectively, to evaluate their impact, understand how best to improve outcomes - for organisations and members of the Armed Forces community alike - increase the pace and quality of supportive work. Without such accountability, the Covenant risks becoming devalued and increasingly irrelevant.

24th January 2025