Guidance

VAPC south east England: meeting minutes 4 July 2022

Updated 25 October 2024

Attendees:

Rob Nitsch (Chair, RN)
Graham Cable (GC)
Nick Berryman (NB)
Robin Draper (RD)
Steve Fradley (SF)
Simon Furlong (SFL)
Ali Grant (AG)
Matt Hall (MH)
Colin Howe (CH)
Clive Hunt (CHT)
Stephen James (SJ)
Craig Jones (CJ)
Patrick Lyster-Todd (PLT)
Keith Malcolm (KM)
Andrew McHugh (AMcH)
Ash Merry (AM)
Carron Snagge (CS)
Debra Soper (DS)
Neil Strachan (NS)
Fiona Sweny (FS)
Ian Talbot (IT)

Invitees:

Kate McCullough (KMcC) (Head, Defence Transition Services)

Apologies:

Dan Brooks
Kate Steels

1. Welcome

RN opened the meeting, welcomed all attendees and in particular the new committee members, and thanked PLT (and through him HH) for organising the venue and catering.

RN also thanked KMcC for agreeing to attend in her capacity as Head of the Defence Transition Services (DTS) and invited her to brief the meeting on this crucial work in support of Service Leavers and veterans.

2. Briefing on DTS

KMcM briefed the meeting on the role and mandate of DTS and emphasised that the Defence Transition Referral Protocol (DTRP) is a mechanism openly available online for anyone to use, including SEVAPC members, to refer Service Leavers, veterans and their families to DTS/VWS for support.

The DTRP is used when the above are in need due to severe physical or psychological disablement or are considered as having an enduring welfare need with which they require post-Service support. It also covers Service Leavers (and their families) who don’t meet these criteria but have transition issues which are likely to impede their chances of a successful exit out of the military. In using the DTRP, SEVAPC members do not need to concern themselves with whether a referral might fall within a VWS (as covered in the previous meeting) or DTS remit, as the relevant decision will be made upon receipt of the DTRP referral by appropriate staff.

The support and guidance available can cover:

• Health
• Accommodation
• Relocation
• Drugs and alcohol misuse
• Finance and debt
• Benefits
• Children, family and relationships
• Training and education
• Employment

See further information, along with the DTRP form. SEVAPC members are urged to use this as a means to refer any veterans they identify as in need of VWS/DTS support directly to those entities via the central triage system as explained at the above link.

3. Brief on VAPC chairs’ activity

RN provided the meeting with a back brief on recent VAPC chairs’ activity, as derived from their joint meetings, including with Veterans UK and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans (MinDPV).

SFL and GC also provided their input having recently attended a Veterans UK/VAPC conference in RN’s stead.

4. Sub committee (SC) updates

Finance and Debt:

• SFL provided an update on recent SC activity and welcomed DS as a new member. The focus going forward is to be on the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) quinquennial review; cross-agency information sharing and financial education for Serving personnel and veterans/families.
• AMcH asked if we could press for figures on how many preserved Armed Forces pensions are unclaimed

Veterans and the Law:

• SF provided an update on recent activity, highlighting that current staffing issues in the Criminal Justice (CJ) sector provoked a knock-on effect on engagement with and support for veterans within it. This is currently partially mitigated by support agencies contacting veterans within the CJ system via video calls, but this still implied a resource bill for CJ staff, so is not a perfect solution.
• Future efforts include looking to identify a prison within our region to track support agencies’ interventions and their effect on a (positive or negative) post-CJ trajectory. However, IT remarked that every prison is covered by SSAFA, but not every veteran in the CJ system wishes to self-identity as a veteran or receive support.
• A further priority for the SC is to target signposting support available to veterans to those serving within our region’s police services; the inference being that this will offer the opportunity and (hopefully) benefits for and of early intervention.

Health and Wellbeing (H&W):

• CJ welcomed new members and indicated the SC had been focusing on mental health (MH), given that this was also the principal focus of NHS England. The priority is to publicise and promote GPs as access points for MH support, but the South East is suffering from a shortage of GPs, with the South Coast freezing recruitment for MH services.
• PLT remarked that the Royal College of GPs promotes the ‘Veteran Aware’ GP surgery initiative, but not all GPs are aware, so we can also help to promote. KM remarked that his role in Portsmouth means that is covered there at least.
• AMcH highlighted the link between (poor) MH/physical health and smoking, and suggested the committee needs to look at helping veterans quit smoking.
• CJ emphasised that the SC needs to be better linked to the national VAPC H&W sub committee. RN undertook to arrange this via BD, and also to link CJ directly to Prof Alan Finnegan.

Housing:

• PLT emphasised that the Veterans’ Gateway is the best support signposting service for housing needs. He also suggested closer links with the Cobseo Housing Cluster need to be forged, and RN undertook to provide these.
• AMcH undertook to share a link to Sanctuary Housing Association, and also raised the point that such associations need to be able to identify veterans to be able to offer them tailored support in accordance with the Armed Forces Covenant. He also remarked that the issue was identification of veterans by housing associations (HAs), not helped by the lack of the veterans’ ID card promised by government. RN undertook to press Veterans UK (via the Brigadier) on this matter.
• PLT confirmed the SC focus would be to get in touch with HAs to check to what extent they have identified veterans in their areas.
• RN undertook to raise the issue of getting veterans on HA lists at the next VAPC Chairs’ meeting with MinDPV.

Employment, Education and Skills

• In KS’ absence, SJ raised the issue of how effective the ‘guaranteed interview’ scheme for veterans was in the public sector, along with how many employers were using the National Insurance incentives.
• CH emphasised that there was a problem within the Department for Work and Pensions’ provision that veterans were not identifying themselves for tailored work-finding support, so extra effort was going into publicising this.
• It was agreed priorities should focus on identifying areas of support for veterans in work-finding, such as teaching careers, TechVets (identified by MH), Building Heroes and more general life skills training, as well as support for job-finding such as Salute My Job.

5. Strategy

RN reminded the meeting that he had circulated the new draft strategy and had received comments, which he would incorporate before finalising and distributing the final version.

6. Distribution of tasks

Given GC is covering Vice Chair, Secretary and National Training Lead duties, RN requested volunteers to organise meetings in future and administer the information portal. SJ undertook to take on the latter, and volunteers to organise future meetings included AM (during the meeting) and subsequently NS and MH.

GC will work with volunteers to hand over these duties.

7. Date of next meeting

The next meeting will aim for Oct/Nov, with CH offering to give an overview of DWP support for veterans and their families. GC will work, as indicated above, with volunteers for a location, date and arrangements etc.

8. Any other business/close

Items mentioned were that SEVAPC should push for government funding for housing for veterans (RN will raise with MinDPV at the next VAPC Chairs’ meeting), and that we should all consider attending local ASDIC (Association of Service Drop-in Centres) and Armed Forces & Veterans’ Breakfast Club meetings to meet with veterans and identify any concerns.