All councils in England have signed the voluntary Armed Forces Covenant and are committed to honouring their obligations to those who have served their country. Councils are helping serving and ex-service personnel and their families to have the same equality of access to public services as their civilian neighbours in areas such as housing, health, employment, education, welfare and transport.
Key messages
- The Government’s Veterans Strategy is a positive step forward, Armed Forces veterans and their families are valued members of our communities. All councils have signed the voluntary Armed Forces Covenant and are committed to honouring their obligations to those who have served their country.
- Councils work with partners to provide a range of services that help veterans and their families adjust from the Armed Forces to civilian life, including housing, money advice, employment support and health and wellbeing services.
- Councils also work with partners to help veterans and their families, who for a variety of reasons may have additional needs arising from their service and, who may also experience a period of crisis that requires intensive support from a number of public agencies as well as the voluntary and community sector.
- We welcome the additional funding for the mental health of veterans announced in the Chancellor’s Budget last month which will help to ensure that veterans in need of mental health support can access timely, effective and integrated services. The funding should be available to veterans through councils who want to work with armed forces charities, health and other local partners to further strengthen mental health support for veterans and ensure it links to wider mental health activity.
- The scale of the funding challenge facing local government in England means it is challenging to maintain the current level of support for veterans and other people in vulnerable circumstances.
- At a time when council budgets are under pressure, it is a concern that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Covenant funding for councils starts to end from March 2019, which will impact upon future capacity to deliver specific projects that further the Covenant locally. We want to support councils to share the learning from Covenant funded projects and embed Covenant activity across councils and partners. We are therefore calling on the Government to continue with its MoD Covenant funding for councils.
Download the full briefing
Veterans Strategy, House of Commons and House of Lords debates, 15 November 2018