Scottish Government Support for the Veterans and Armed Forces Community 2024

Cross-Cutting Factors

Collaboration and Coordination

Local Authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions

We continue to recognise the important role that Local Authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions have in supporting veterans and their families at a local level. Following the release of veterans data from Scotland's Census 2022 in June, the Minister for Veterans wrote to each Champion to highlight in particular the proportion of veterans living in their area and to ask how they are supporting their veterans and families locally. We also continue to offer them the opportunity to meet with the Veterans Minister at least once per year.

Promotion of Sector-wide Information and Guidance

This year we promoted the value of Veterans Assist and shared it with the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) Research Centre to support their various thematic policy and research summaries; and with academics producing research on the experiences of, and support available to, women veterans.

In addition, we continue to share information via the Veterans Scotland Newsletter to promote opportunities and distribute information across the sector. For example, in support of a Scottish Veterans Commissioner recommendation, we developed an article sharing information and signposting on social enterprises.

Armed Forces Covenant Participation and Engagement

We remain an active member of the Armed Forces Covenant’s governance structure and maintain engagement with MOD and partners through these groups, including the Armed Forces Covenant Community Action Group. Additionally, we have again contributed to the UK Government’s Covenant Annual Report, which will be published by the MOD later in the year.

Unforgotten Forces Consortium

We are providing £315,000 of funding to the Unforgotten Forces Consortium in this financial year. The consortium is a partnership of 16 military and civilian charitable organisations with the purpose of delivering a wide array of services to veterans in Scotland aged 60 and over, as well as sharing best practise and supporting cross referrals between organisations.

Across 2023-2024, the consortium recorded over 30,000 incidents of support provided to 8,500 veterans, including 3,000 referrals (over 1,200 of which were between Unforgotten Forces partners).

Scottish Veterans Fund

We are providing £456k through the Scottish Veterans Fund to projects supporting veterans and their families across Scotland. The priorities for the fund are projects which provide help to veterans and their families in the face of the cost of living crisis, Early Service Leavers and projects encouraging collaborative working across the veterans community. The 14 projects funded in 2024-2025 are listed below:

Relationships with the Families Federations

We are committed to maintaining our excellent relationship with the Families Federations in Scotland and continue to have regular discussions with the Federations across the three Services to ensure a joined-up approach to supporting Service families in Scotland. In addition, the Forces Families jobs website continues to have a link to Work for Scotland to ensure that Armed Forces families can access job opportunities within the Scottish Government.

Scottish Veterans Commissioner

We continue to fund the Scottish Veterans Commissioner and remain fully supportive of her work. We welcomed the Commissioner's first and second thematic reports on Community and Relationships and Veterans and the Law in January and October respectively and we are now considering how to best support the delivery of their recommendations. We contributed to and welcomed the Commissioner’s 2024 progress report which again demonstrated that the Scottish Government broadly continues to make progress against the various outstanding recommendations.

Relationships with the UK Government and other Devolved Administrations

We remain committed to working collaboratively with the UK and Devolved Governments, particularly to support the delivery of Veterans Strategy commitments affecting veterans across the UK, including the development of the Women Veterans Strategy, the veterans consultation, and veterans data.

Data

Scotland’s Census

In June 2024, National Records of Scotland (NRS) published information from the 2022 Census on Scotland’s veteran population. This is the first time Scotland’s Census has ever collected data on veteran status.

Scotland’s 2022 Census found that 176,100 people had previously served in the UK Armed Forces. This is 3.9% of people aged 16 and over. The initial Census publication also provided a breakdown on the age, sex and geographical spread of our veterans. In November 2024, NRS published a Flexible Table Builder that enables multivariate analysis on the veteran population, including a wider range of variables such as ethnic group, religion and disability. Scottish Government analysts have been examining this detailed data to better understand veterans’ demographic characteristics and explore key differences between the veteran and non-veteran population. To further support interpretation and use of Census data, additional analysis will be undertaken in 2025 to provide greater insight into the Veteran Strategy themes, such as community and relationships, employment, education and skills, health and wellbeing, and housing.

Household Survey

The first findings for veterans from the three Scottish Government major household surveys – Scottish Household Survey (SHS), Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) and the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) – have started to become available in the last year.

Results on veterans from the pooled analysis of the common questions across the three surveys were also released in March 2024 as part of the Scottish Surveys Core Questions 2022.

We are exploring how best to robustly analyse and make use of the data now available, which can offer insight into themes across the Veterans Strategy.

Additionally, we are also progressing work to finalise and populate a monitoring framework for the Veterans Strategy in Scotland. The framework includes a number of outcomes for critical aspects of the Strategy’s themes and cross-cutting factors. When finalised, the framework will collate data from a number of sources, including exploiting new data sources, such as the Scottish Government surveys, which have emerged following work in recent years under the Strategy to address gaps in the evidence available on veterans. The framework will also allow us to see how outcomes are changing over time.

Additional Data Sources

In 2024, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Office for Veterans' Affairs (OVA) started publishing findings on topical themes from the first UK-wide Veterans’ Survey: including ‘Life after service’ and ‘Preparedness to leave the UK Armed Forces’. This followed the publication of high level UK findings for personal characteristics of veterans in December 2023. The releases also provide insight into whether the patterns seen in responses differed amongst veterans in different countries which helps us better understand the picture in Scotland.

We continue work with ONS, The OVA and the other Devolved Governments to inform and support the production of the outputs, and to explore options for making best use of the available data relating to Scotland to enhance our evidence-base.

Scottish Government and National Records of Scotland analysts are assessing options for analysing veteran suicides in Scotland through data linkage. Officials have been engaging with ONS to understand their approach and experience of producing the ‘Suicide in UK armed forces veterans, England and Wales: 2021’ report, published in April 2024. This used data linkage between the Service Leavers Database and 2021 Census data for England and Wales. Learning from the ONS analysis and the initial data released from Scotland’s 2022 Census on veterans has informed the options and timelines being explored for taking forward equivalent analysis in Scotland. This includes considering, for example, the impact of Scotland’s smaller population on options available.

UK Government Data-sharing opportunities

Two Service Leavers Database (SLD) extracts have been received by Administrative Data Research (ADR) Scotland officials. The first extract has records until the end of 2022 (c. 1975-2022) and the second is an update containing an additional year (c. 1975-2023). The data is currently being processed with the aim of making it available within the ADR Scotland secure infrastructure later in 2024. A data sharing agreement between the Scottish Government and MOD will facilitate annual updates to the SLD dataset. Researchers wishing to undertake projects will access the data through the standard Statistics Public Benefit and Privacy Panel procedures.

Scottish Government analytical officials regularly meet and engage with cross-government counterparts, including the OVA, ONS and the other Devolved Governments. For example, SG attend the cross-sector Data Strategy Group convened by the OVA to take action on data-related issues concerning veterans.

Perception and Recognition

Armed Forces Engagement

We continue to work closely with the Armed Forces in Scotland and support the Firm Base working groups and annual conference. The Veterans Minister spoke at the conference in November 2023 and officials continue to have regular discussions with the three Services to ensure a collaborative approach to supporting veterans in Scotland.

In addition, the Former First Minister, Minister for Veterans and Scottish Government Permanent Secretary have met with General Officer Scotland (current and former) over the past twelve months, and in August 2024 the Minister for Veterans undertook a visit to HMS Caledonia, Rosyth, where he met with the Naval Regional Commander for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The First Minister met with the Chief of the General Staff (Head of the British Army) in August 2024 and the Veterans Minister met with the former MOD Minister of State, the Earl of Minto.

These exchanges have provided opportunities for the Scottish Government to relay our support for our Armed Forces and the valuable contribution they make to the communities they live in, and wider Scottish society as a whole.

ID Cards

The HM Armed Forces Veteran Card has now been rolled out by the UK Government and veterans are now able to apply via the Gov.UK website. Whilst the Card is fully reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government has provided advice and signposting to veterans seeking more information on the cards and their utility.

Commemoration

We provided £22,000 of funding to support Legion Scotland and Poppyscotland in delivering a national commemoration to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. This included the production of educational materials for children and young people to raise awareness of the sacrifices made to ensure the freedoms we enjoy today.

The First Minister represented the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland at the UK D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth and Normandy. In addition, the Veterans Minister attended the ANZAC and Gallipoli remembrance service, amongst other commemorative activity this year.