Up-Date: What the covenant means to you? Service leavers and veterans The covenant continues to apply to members of the armed forces and their families even after they have left service. Since 2011, the covenant has helped veterans in a number of ways, including: giving priority to veterans accessing NHS services for service related conditions delivering an e-learning package to educate GPs in how best to support veterans’ healthcare needs, including raising awareness of the Reserve Mental Health Programme delivering improvements in mental health care provision including extending access to mental health care to 6 months after discharge, increasing in the number of veterans’ mental health professionals, establishing a 24 hour helpline and a support and advice website providing help for those leaving the armed forces to go on to higher/further education: not least through payment of tuition fees, which may be passed on to a spouse or partner in the case of bereavement or extreme injury exempting service leavers from paying tax when using Enhanced Learning Credits to study at Level 3 or above ensuring service personnel in England are placed at the top of the priority list for all government funded homeownership schemes including the government’s £500 million . This priority lasts for up to 12 months after leaving the armed forces exempting payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and the War Pensions Scheme from the assessment for Universal Credit launching a new charity portal for veterans with a link to a dedicated full page of information on each organisation, including services provided and details of how to contact them ensuring that special arrangements are made to allow foreign and commonwealth service personnel to be granted settlement on the day or the day immediately after they leave the armed forces Find out how the covenant has helped Veterans. We recognise that there is still more to be done to support veterans. Among other things, the government therefore intends to: make sure that new guidance is available to case officers considering applications for settlement and naturalisation to clarify for both case officers and applicants how military convictions will affect an application Wounded, injured and sick One of the covenant’s key principles is that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given the most, such as the injured and the bereaved. Since 2011, the covenant has helped wounded, injured and sick service personnel in a number of ways, including: investing up to £17.5 million to support the commissioning of specialist prosthetic and rehabilitation services for amputee veterans through a number of multi-disciplinary centres in England making prosthetic provision through the NHS the same level as that provided to serving personnel by the MOD delivering a number of improvements in mental health care provision, including extending access to mental health care to 6 months after discharge, increasing the number of veterans’ mental health professionals, a 24 hour helpline and a support and advice website, the integration of mental health assessments into routine service medicals providing up to 3 free cycles of IVF for seriously injured personnel in England and Scotland introducing the Defence Recovery Capability, in partnership with Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion, to facilitate either the swiftest return to duty or the smoothest transition to an appropriate skilled and supported civilian life for all seriously wounded, injured or sick long term service personnel establishing a unified Defence Primary Healthcare Service to improve patient care through more coherent policy making and direction; reduce costs by eliminating duplication and making more efficient use of resources; and ensure more effective links with the NHS giving priority to veterans accessing NHS services for service related conditions delivering an e-learning package to educate GPs in how best to support veterans’ healthcare needs exempting payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and the War Pensions Scheme from the assessment for Universal Credit ensuring that continuous automatic entitlement to Blue Badges is in place for seriously injured service personnel and veterans Find out how the covenant has helped Wounded, injured and sick. We recognise that there is still more to be done to support wounded, injured and sick service personnel. Among other things, the government therefore intends to: take forward work to implement all of the recommendations contained in the Care Quality Commission review of the Defence Medical Services to obtain funding for a study into support for the bereaved and the families of those who have been injured Service families The covenant recognises the contribution that is made by the families of serving personnel, reservists and veterans. Since 2011, the covenant has helped spouses, partners and families in a number of ways, including: introducing a scheme to provide scholarships to bereaved children of service personnel providing help for those leaving the armed forces to go on to higher or further education, through payment of tuition fees, which may be passed to a spouse or partner in the case of a death or serious injury introducing the Service Pupil Premium for the children of those serving and valued at £300 per child from April 2013, with a total of £17 million expected to be spent in 2013 to 2014 widening access to the Service Pupil Premium to include any child in England who was eligible in 2011 but whose serving parent has for whatever reason since left the service introducing a ‘Pupil information profile’ to help with the transfer of key information when service children move from one school to another allowing infant schools in England to exceed the 30 pupil limit for classes in order to accommodate children of service personnel and offer a place in advance of a service family moving into the area making a service child indicator part of the Annual School Census in England and the Department for Education is now able to identify separately the children of parents in the armed forces providing £150 million for the purchase of over 700 high quality properties for use as service family accommodation in areas of high demand making a further £5 million available to upgrade service family accommodation (SFA). This will help bring long term empty properties back into use, thus reducing the use of costly substitute SFA establishing an automated self-preference system, allowing service personnel to see online ‘estate agent’ type details for available SFA, to register their top 3 preferences for their new home and to book their house moves exempting payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and the War Pensions Scheme from the assessment for Universal Credit doubling the Families Welfare Grant launching MoneyForce, in conjunction with The Royal British Legion and Standard Life Charitable Trust, to improve financial awareness among Service personnel and their families Find out how the covenant has helped Service families. We recognise that there is still more to be done to support families. Among other things, the government therefore intends to: review the impact of the revised admissions guidance to ensure that it is removing disadvantage, where possible, by helping service personnel to secure a place at their school of choice in England continue to review the use of Service pupil premium and publish examples of best practice to help ensure that it is addressing disadvantages service children review the support fund for state schools with service children to ensure it continues to be used to mitigate the effects of exceptional mobility and deployment on schools, academies and free schools within the UK ensure that the specific needs of children of service personnel are recognised in particular with the new academies and free schools in England gather evidence of the particular needs of service children when it comes to childcare provision within the UK to identify whether there is any disadvantage due to the nature of their work seek clarification on how higher education will be funded, identify if this will disadvantage service children and seek to address any disadvantages arrange for Ofsted to report on the use of the Service Pupil Premium as part of inspections of schools with service children monitor any changes to the ‘Residential support scheme’ to ensure that service children are not disadvantaged continue to look for opportunities to further mitigate the impact of years 2 and 3 of the planned pause on improvements to service family accommodation (SFA) establish a ministerially-chaired board to oversee progress with improvements to the provision of SFA consider whether there could be more flexibility in the provision of SFA, such as extending entitlement to those in long-term relationships Bereaved One of the covenant’s key principles is that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given the most, such as the injured and the bereaved. Although we can never do enough to compensate for the loss of a loved one, we will continue to do what we can to support the bereaved. The covenant has helped the bereaved in a number of ways, including: introducing a scheme to provide scholarships for bereaved service children extending the payment of tuition fees for higher/further education to the spouses or partners taking up the entitlement because of bereavement or extreme injury of a discharged Service person including bereaved spouses or civil partners at the top of the priority list for the government’s £500 million FirstBuy scheme in England, which is designed to help first time buyers; and at the top of the priority list for all other government-funded home ownership schemes exempting payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and the War Pensions Scheme from the assessment for Universal Credit increasing the Funeral Expenses Grant to £1000 to help families with the incidental expenses associated with a funeral. The changed grant will now be paid to each service family that suffers a bereavement, regardless of whether a service funeral is held creating a specialist cadre of coroners available to investigate the deaths of service personnel on active service, or while training and preparing for active service You can email the Armed Forces Covenant Team at: [email protected] or subscribe to our email alerts to find out the latest updates for the armed forces covenant. Related information What the covenant means to you: leaflets Armed forces covenant: useful contacts Where can I go if I have a problem or complaint? Ref: https://gov.uk/government/policies/fulfilling-the-commitments-of-the-armed-forces-covenant/supporting-pages/what-the-covenant-means-to-you
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 11:14:45 +0000
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