Official Statistics

Background quality report: location of armed forces pension and compensation recipients as at 31 March 2021

Published 26 August 2021

The purpose of a background quality report is to inform users of the statistics about the quality of the data used to produce the publication, and any statistics derived from that data. It also discusses existing uses of the statistics and user requirements.

This assessment relates to the Location of UK Armed Forces pension and compensation recipients statistics published by Defence Statistics.

Introduction

This Statistical Bulletin provides summary statistics on the location of UK Armed Forces pension and compensation recipients by country, region, county, local authority, local health authority, parliamentary constituency and postcode district.

The cohort of UK Armed Forces pension and compensation recipients is made up of the following;

• Ex-serving UK Armed Forces personnel in receipt of an occupational pension under one of the Armed Forces Pension Schemes (AFPS 75 and 05). This cohort excludes those in receipt under AFPS 15, please see the ‘coverage and user needs’ section for more information.

• Ex-serving UK Armed Forces personnel, war widow(er)s, war orphans, war parents, adult dependants and recipients of a child allowance under the War Pension Scheme (WPS).

• Serving and ex-serving UK Armed Forces personnel that have been awarded compensation under the Armed Forces and Reserve Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS).

Please note that the MOD does not hold data on the location of all veterans. Ex-serving personnel who are not in receipt of an occupational pension under the AFPS (75 or 05) or have not been awarded compensation under the WPS or the AFCS on or prior to 31 March 2021 will not be included in these statistics. An estimate of the total number of UK Armed Forces veterans is available in the Annual Population Survey Official Statistic.

Under the AFCS those who are most seriously injured or ill are awarded a Guaranteed Income Payment (GIP). Veterans who are most seriously injured or ill are more likely to require access to local health and social care services.

This Statistical Bulletin is published as an Official Statistic, adhering to the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) protocols on pre-release access.

Background

There are several occupational pension schemes available to UK Armed Forces personnel. The data presented in these statistics cover the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 1975 (AFPS 75) and the Armed Forces Pension Scheme 2005 (AFPS 05). AFPS 75 was introduced in 1975 and was closed to new entrants from 6 April 2005. AFPS 05 was the scheme applicable to those joining the Regular UK Armed Forces from 6 April 2005. Serving members of AFPS 75 were given an opportunity to transfer to AFPS 05 by 6 April 2006. A new scheme was introduced in 2015 (AFPS 15) for those joining the Regular UK Armed Forces from 1 April 2015 however, these statistics currently do not include this cohort. More information on why AFPS 15 recipients cannot be included can be found in section 2.1.

There are currently two compensation schemes for those injured or bereaved through service;

• The War Pension Scheme (WPS) provides no-fault compensation for all ex-service personnel where illness, injury or death is caused by service from the start of the First World War in 1914 until 5 April 2005. Individuals can only submit a claim under this scheme only when they have left the UK Armed Forces.

• The Armed Forces and Reserve Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) came into force on 6 April 2005 to pay compensation for injury, illness or death caused by service on or after that date. Unlike the WPS, service personnel can claim for compensation under the AFCS whilst in service.

The AFPS, WPS and AFCS are managed by Defence Business Service (DBS) Veterans UK within the MOD. Full guidance and policy information on pensions for veterans and compensation can be found on the GOV.UK website.

In addition to the ‘Location of UK Armed Forces pension and compensation recipients’ statistics, Defence Statistics publish the following statistics relating to veterans;

• Annual War Pension Scheme (WPS) National Statistics detailing ex-serving personnel currently in receipt of a pension under the WPS, including a breakdown by region (figures as at the end of the financial year, published in June).

• Annual Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) National Statistics detailing serving and ex-serving personnel that have been awarded compensation under the AFCS, including a breakdown by region (figures as at the end of the financial year published, in June).

• UK Armed Forces Veteran estimates, using information captured within the Annual Population Survey, administered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). These statistics provided comparisons of estimated veteran and non-veteran populations residing in Great Britain on the following: people characteristics; regional location; health including smoking status; employment status; education and accommodation (housing). This was a four-part publication, the last in the series was published in January 2019.

• A one-off publication using Census 2011 data: Working Age UK Armed Forces veterans residing in England and Wales. These statistics provide estimates on the size and socio-demographic characteristics of the working age UK Armed Forces veteran population (between 16 and 64 years of age). A follow-up publication analysing the difference between the veteran and general populations, and any disadvantages therein, was published in October 2019.

• A one-off publication providing summary statistics on the projected number of veterans in 2028, compared with 2016 estimates

Methodology

Information on those that are in receipt of an occupational pension under the AFPS (75 and 05), and those that have been awarded compensation under the AFCS is held on the Compensation and Pension System (CAPS). Information on recipients of an ongoing pension under the WPS is held on the War Pension Computer System (WPCS). The MOD is responsible for managing both systems and for the quality of the data. Defence Statistics receive quarterly extracts from the CAPS and the WPCS. Extracts from both systems are processed by Defence Statistics and stored on a MYSQL database. The CAPS and WPCS data extracts used to compile these statistics are all as at 31 March 2021.

The CAPS data on individuals currently in receipt of an occupational pension under the AFPS (75 and 05), and the WPCS data on recipients of an ongoing pension under the WPS include only veterans (and dependants under the WPS). However, the CAPS data on recipients that have been awarded compensation under the AFCS includes personnel that are still serving since claimants can claim whilst still in service. Therefore, in order to identify veterans from this cohort, the CAPS data were linked with MOD Armed Forces population data extracted from the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system to determine those ‘on strength’ (i.e. in service) as at 31 March 2021. This information has been used to compile the breakdown of AFCS recipients still in service, and veteran AFCS recipients, as at 31 March 2021.

The CAPS records the date of death for AFCS compensation recipients who have subsequently died following their compensation award. Individuals with a date of death recorded on their CAPS record have been excluded from this analysis. However, this information is only updated if DBS are notified of a death. Therefore, there may be individuals who have been awarded compensation under the AFCS and have later died that are still included within these statistics.

The location of recipients of a GIP in payment under the AFCS as at 31 March 2021 have been included within the Supplementary Tables using data within the AFCS dataset. The information provides an indication of numbers who are more likely to require support from local health and social care services as GIPs are only awarded to those who are seriously injured or ill. Further information on Guaranteed Income Payments can be found within AFCS Statistics.

The location of recipients of an occupational pension and/or compensation in the UK were derived by individuals’ postcodes as recorded on the CAPS and WPCS as at 31 March 2021. Region, county, unitary authority (UA), local authority, parliamentary constituency, Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Local Health Boards (LHB) were compiled by linking individuals’ full postcodes with the latest ONS geography lookup tables as at May 2021. Postcode district information was produced by grouping individuals by their postcode prefix (first three or four digits). Figures by postcode district are presented for all UK postcode districts (i.e. including those that did not appear in the above ONS geography lookup tables).

The reporting of recipients by country (Table 2, Supplementary Tables) has been updated to include the ISO-Alpha 3 coding system as originated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This is to standardize the name and region of each individual country to international standards and to ensure the data within this bulletin is comparable with other statistics.

National Health Service (NHS) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Local Health Board (LHB) coverage is limited to England and Wales respectively. As such, local health authority boundary data for other UK regions were consolidated from other sources. Information about Northern Ireland (NI) Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts and Scottish Integration Authorities (IA) were sourced from NI Direct and Scottish Government SpatialData respectively. Wales Local Health Boards (LHBs), Northern Ireland (NI) Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts and Scottish Integration Authorities (IA) were compiled by linking individuals’ full postcodes with the relevant lookup tables.

All regional breakdowns are updated to match the latest ONS boundaries as at the date of publication. As such, areas such as Local Authorities, CCGs and Postcodes may change between years to reflect changes introduced by the respective authorities.

Previous bulletins have reported Community Health Partnerships (CHP) in Scotland. The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 lead to the dissolution of these regions and the introduction of Integration Authorities (IA) - as reported on in this bulletin. Comparability between bulletins is largely valid between regions of the same namesake due to geographic similarities, however the Fife IA was formed by merging the Dunfermline and West Fife, Glenrothes and North East Fife, and Kirkcaldy and Levenmouth CHPs, whilst Clackmannanshire and Stirling IAs was formed by merging the Clackmannanshire and Stirling CHPs.

The figures by postcode district have only been provided for England, Wales and Scotland. Information by postcode district has not been provided for Northern Ireland due to security concerns regarding the release of this information. In Table 6 of the supplementary tables, all pension and compensation recipients residing in Northern Ireland have been presented with a postcode district of ‘BT’ (including recipients with invalid postcodes and BFPO addresses). Breakdowns by district council area and HSC Trusts have been provided for recipients residing in Northern Ireland with a valid postcode, but not for those with an invalid postcode or BFPO address.

The category of ‘UK unknown’ includes records with a blank or invalid UK postcode. This category may also include records with an invalid overseas address. The number of records presented in the UK unknown category differs between Table 6 and all other tables in supplementary tables. This is due to postcodes where the first half (e.g. BS34) is valid, but the full postcode is not. For these records, although it is possible to provide a summary by postcode district, the full postcode cannot be linked to the relevant data used to assign further location groupings e.g. region, county, local authority etc.

Since individuals can be in receipt of pension and compensation under more than one scheme, combined figures of all unique service personnel, veterans and dependants have also been presented, with veterans presented as a subset.

It is important to note that the regional location information within these statistics for those awarded compensation under the WPS and the AFCS may not match the regional breakdowns as at 31 March 2021 presented within the WPS statistics and the AFCS statistics, previously published on 24 June 2021. The regional information compiled for the WPS and AFCS National Statistic publications used only the postcode information as captured within the respective systems (the WPCS and the CAPS). However, when compiling these location statistics, it was identified that there were a number of people that appeared on both the WPCS and the CAPS with different recorded postcodes. In these instances, the postcode with the most recent effective date has been used. The postcode is based on the latest address provided to the MOD by the individual. Please note that the MOD may not always be notified of a change of address and therefore the ‘current’ location information for some individuals may be incorrect.

Relevance

Coverage

The majority of users who request information in this area are interested in the total number of veterans within a specific location. The MOD does not hold information on the location of all veterans. However, these statistics present a summary in relation to compensation and pension recipients that is held by the MOD on the location of known veteran cohorts.

These statistics exclude veterans who were not in receipt of an ongoing pension under the AFPS 75 and 05, and veterans who had not received compensation under the WPS or the AFCS as at 31 March 2021.

These statistics do not currently include ex-serving personnel in receipt of a pension under the AFPS 15. Data for this pension scheme are held on the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system and it is not currently possible to separate those who are receiving their pension and those who currently have a deferred pension. Therefore, the overall number of AFPS recipients should be treated as a minimum.

User need

The ‘Location of UK Armed Forces pension and compensation recipients’ statistics were developed following an increasingly high burden of requests for information from external users seeking lower-level detail regarding the current location of WPS and AFCS recipients than already published. In particular, requests from UK government authorities and UK health authorities, requesting estimates of serving and ex-serving personnel residing within their catchment area that have been awarded compensation as result of service-attributable injury or illness.

The increase in such requests has been primarily driven by the Armed Forces Covenant, published in May 2011, which sets out the moral obligation of the nation to its members of the Armed Forces and their families. Supplementary to this is the Armed Forces Covenant for communities, encouraging local communities to support the Armed Forces community in their area and promote understanding and awareness of issues affecting the Armed Forces community. Therefore, public bodies such as UK government and health authorities, and non-profit organisations are keen to obtain an understanding of the numbers of potentially vulnerable serving personnel and veterans within their catchment areas that may require access to local support including health and social care services.

Accuracy

Coverage

Data on all individuals currently in receipt of a pension under the WPS are held on the WPCS. The CAPS captures information on all recipients of an occupational pension under the AFPS 75 and AFPS 05 schemes and recipients of compensation under the AFCS. Therefore, we assume 100% coverage of these cohorts. Please note that whilst data are held on dependants awarded compensation under the AFCS, this cohort is not currently included within these statistics. However, this cohort will be included in future updates.

The CAPS data includes all recipients of compensation under the AFCS between the start of the scheme (6 April 2005) and 31 March 2021. This includes individuals that have later died (of related or unrelated causes). Identifying those that have subsequently died relies on the MOD having been informed of their death. Therefore, these statistics may be over-counting the number of recipients of compensation under the AFCS (and subsequently, the total number of all recipients and veterans) where the MOD have not been informed of an individual’s death. Please note that the number of compensation recipients presented in the AFCS National Statistic will not match the figures presented in this bulletin. This is because the AFCS National Statistic includes dependents (partner, spouse, children) awarded compensation for the death of service personnel, plus personnel who were awarded under the AFCS who have died prior to 31 March 2021.

The accuracy of the location of UK Armed Forces recipients of pension and compensation is harder to ascertain. Individuals’ locations are determined by their postcode as recorded on the WPCS or the CAPS. Postcode fields on both systems are non-mandatory, free-text fields. Therefore, the accuracy of reported locations relies on a valid and accurate postcode having been entered. This also relies on individuals’ address information remaining up-to-date on the relevant system. Recipients of lump sum awards (without an ongoing Guaranteed Income Payment) under the AFCS are unlikely to update their address details once their claim has been settled. Overall there were 476,995 individuals captured within the data for the three schemes. Of these, 64,703 (14%) records had no postcode information, or an invalid UK postcode captured on the relevant systems as at 31 March 2021. These 64,703 records do not include known overseas recipients, as these individuals have been identified based on region and country codes within the data.

Revisions Policy

Revisions will be made to these statistics to improve the usability and relevance when necessary. Reasons for revising figures include:

• Acquiring new information relating to already published results;

• Improvements to methodology and selection of data sources;

• Identification of significant errors.

Any revisions to historic data can be identified by a revision marker (‘r’) and will only be discussed if such revisions are considered to have an impact on the findings.

Timeliness and Punctuality

Timeliness

These statistics are published on an annual basis, five months after the reference period. This is to allow time for the AFCS and WPS data to be collated, analysed and quality assured in the development of these statistics. Further information on these statistics is provided in section 1.1.

Punctuality

These statistics have been published to schedule. Future publication dates will be announced on the statistics release calendar published on the gov.uk website at least one month in advance.

Accessibility and Clarity

Users of these statistics can access the latest and previous publications and accompanying Microsoft Excel and Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) supplementary tables on the GOV.UK website. The previously published report (as at 31 March 2020), published in August 2020 received 2,352 unique web hits.

Coherence and Comparability

Coherence

The address recorded for each recipient can vary between the AFPS, AFCS and WPS datasets. Therefore, we compare the address effective dates to ensure that the latest address is used for each pension/compensation recipient.

This method differs for location information summarised in the WPS and AFCS National Statistics, where the location is based on the latest address recorded on each of their respective datasets (the WPCS and the CAPS).

Comparability

Defence Statistics Health has used the same regional definitions (e.g. region, country and local authority) as the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This enables comparisons to the overall numbers in each area. In addition, country adheres to the ISO-Alpha 3 coding system which standardises the name and region of each individual country to international standards. Comparisons are also possible with other Defence Statistics publications that present location breakdowns e.g. the Location of all UK Regular service and Civilian Personnel Annual Statistics and Annual UK Armed Forces Veterans in Great Britain estimates.

The Annual UK Armed Forces Veterans in Great Britain estimates, using information captured within the Annual Population Survey (APS), presents estimated numbers of veterans in Great Britain by country, region and county (these estimates exclude those residing in Northern Ireland). Due to small numbers, it is not possible to estimate the numbers of veterans at lower geographical levels. However, by using the same ONS definitions it is possible to compare these statistics with the estimates produced by the APS data for England, Scotland and Wales at country, region and county level.

In 2017 there were 2.4 million veterans estimated to be living in Great Britain, using data from the Annual Population Survey.

Figures may not align with the Location of UK regular service and civilian personnel statistics (link) because the location information is sourced from a different system and is recorded for a different purpose. Location data used in the Location of UK regular service and civilian personnel statistics is based on the stationed location of the individual as recorded in the ‘Assignment Location’ field on the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system. The figures are based on Service personnel’s stationed location and not their location of residence – where personnel work isn’t necessarily where they live. This information is required for managing individuals and therefore kept up to date through management administrative processes. Location information on the WPCS and the CAPS is mostly location of residence and relies on the individual to notify the MOD of changes. This is most likely to impact those who were awarded a lump sum payment whose address on the WPCS or the CAPS most likely reflects their address at the point of claim, which could reflect their stationed location at that time rather than their current location.

Comparability Over Time

These statistics are a snap shot in time of the locations of those that are in receipt of an occupational pension under the AFPS, those in receipt of a pension under the WPS and living recipients of compensation under the AFCS. These statistics have not been developed to intentionally compare the numbers of individuals or veterans within these cohorts over time. However, users can compare between publications to see how numbers have changed between one report and the next.

Trade-offs between Output Quality Components

Timeliness and cost versus accuracy is the most notable trade-off for these statistics. The latest statistics relied on quality data for over 476,000 individuals across the three schemes. It is not possible to validate the address information for all individuals. Therefore, Defence Statistics have to rely on the quality of the data captured on the WPCS and the CAPS.

Where individuals are present on both the WPCS and the CAPS, address comparisons are made, and the latest address recorded is retained where the address information is different. Where there is no postcode information recorded, or the postcode information is invalid, records are recorded as not having a valid UK postcode.

Assessment of User Needs and Perceptions

The use made of location of pension and compensation recipient statistics

In reference to the UK Statistics Authority report, The Use Made of Official Statistics, these statistics are known to have been used in the following ways:

• By UK government and UK health authorities to estimate the number of potentially vulnerable veterans within their catchment areas. This enables them to estimate costs and resources required to provide specific local services.

• By third sector organisations to obtain estimates of local veterans to be used as a resource for funding bids for specific service provision, or to assist with planning of potential services that may be required within their catchment area. Examples include the Royal British Legion, local mental health charities, local enterprise partnerships, local employment services, and local housing charities.

Obtaining Information on User Needs

Following the release of the first statistics in November 2011, a record has been kept of all queries, including requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (2000) and parliamentary questions, which have asked for information on the location of pension and compensation recipients. User engagement has primarily been focused on veterans within each location. Therefore, these statistics also present the number of individuals within each location (as recorded across the three pension and compensation schemes), to include separate totals for veterans.

Strengths and Weaknesses of these statistics in relation to Users

Many users of these statistics enquire about information on the location of all veterans residing in a specific location. These statistics do not meet this user need. The MOD does not hold information on the current location of all living persons that have ever served within the UK Armed Forces.

Whilst these statistics do not include all veterans, many requests for information received by the MOD are targeted initially at just veterans that have been awarded compensation under the WPS and/or the AFCS for service-related injury/illness. Therefore, these statistics enable UK government and UK health authorities to gain a better understanding of potentially vulnerable veterans that are more likely to require access to local Health and Social Care service. These location statistics also include veterans that are in receipt of their occupational pension under the AFPS and are therefore of pensionable age.

Performance, Cost and Respondent Burden

Annual updates of the location statistics take one member of staff four weeks to prepare, including data preparation, validation and report writing.

Most of the data required are obtained from existing administration systems that have already been extracted and processed to produce the annual WPS and the AFCS National Statistics. There is only a small marginal cost to obtaining and linking additional ONS location lookups and producing lower-level information on pension and compensation recipients, which was also a requirement prior to the publication of these statistics due to the high volume of external requests for such information.

Confidentiality, Transparency and Security

The raw data used for producing the location statistics includes personal details and addresses of those in receipt of pensions and/or compensation. The data is stored in a MYSQL database and can only be accessed by analysts involved in producing the location statistics. All MOD, civil service and data protection regulations are adhered to. All published outputs are at a high level of aggregation so there are no disclosure issues.

In line with the directives of the JSP 200, disclosure control is conducted on all statistical information provided by the MOD to safeguard the confidentiality of individuals. Within these statistics, a risk of disclosure is considered to be high where numbers presented are fewer than three. In cases where a risk of disclosure exists, numbers fewer than three have been suppressed and marked as ‘~’. Where there is only one cell in a row or column that is fewer than three, secondary suppression has been applied where the next smallest number has also been suppressed so that numbers cannot be derived from totals.

Note: The MOD is not responsible for the contents or reliability of the listed non-MOD web sites and does not necessarily endorse the views expressed therein. Listings should not be taken as endorsement or any kind. We have no control over the availability of these sites. Users access them at their own risk. The information given was correct at the time of publication.