Support for the Veterans and Armed Forces Community 2022

Key Themes

Community and Relationships

Integration into local communities

The Scottish Veterans Fund has provided funding to a number of projects which provide support to veterans to integrate into the local community, such as an activity co-ordinator for veterans in FirstLight Café in Falkirk, or away days for veterans in the Huntly region through Networks of Wellbeing.

Welcome to Scotland

An updated version of Welcome to Scotland was published in April 2022 following extensive consultation with Military, third sector and public sector organisations to ensure that the guide is both up to date and contains the most important information for Service personnel and their families ahead of relocation to Scotland or those returning to Scotland after leaving the Armed Forces.

Employment, Education and Skills

Employability Initiatives

The Scottish Government, through phase 2 delivery of No One Left Behind (NOLB), continues to offer employment support services for those facing significant challenges when leaving the Armed Forces. NOLB provides tailored individual wrap-around support which some Service leavers may need. This can be holistic support as well as employability services support. Through employability support, the key aim of the work is to ensure that veterans and those leaving Service are able to access the full and extensive range of employability support in Scotland, much of which is delivered through Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs) at Local Authority level. The Scottish Government have been liaising with LEPs to ensure veterans remain a priority group as they were within the previous Community Jobs Scotland and Employability Fund programmes, and remain so under phase 2 of No One Left Behind. The Local Authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champions network will play a role in supporting LEPs, ensuring veterans remain a priority grouping in their local employability support offers.

Veterans Employability Strategic Group

The Veterans Employability Strategic Group (VESG) continues to implement its action plan agreed in 2021. Key activities this year have included:

• The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Skills Development Scotland (SDS), MOD and the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) to enable closer working between SDS and CTP including access to individuals transitioning from the Services to civilian life, and sharing of labour market information and other data;
• The launch of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership skills and qualifications mapping tool;
• The Employer Engagement Group, chaired by Officers Association Scotland (OAS), has developed a range of tools to help address negative employer perceptions of veterans which has included a series of infographics and videos which are being made to be presented at a series of regional roadshows.

Skills and Qualifications Mapping

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership’s (SCQFP) qualifications and skills mapping tool went live in February 2022. The tool was tested with Service leavers and it was agreed that the number of job roles should be expanded. This work is currently taking place and an additional 19 jobs are ready for inclusion which are primarily Army roles. The next stage is to identify more Navy and Air Force roles. SDS is further developing the Skills Discovery tool to suggest suitable job roles for users and, eventually, actual job vacancies. SCQFP intends to organise a formal launch and wider promotion of the tool once this work is complete and is also working with the MOD to ensure information relating to qualifications contained within the tool remains current. MOD is looking at developing a database to support this. The Scottish Government will provide a further £13,500 of funding this year to support the ongoing development of the tool.

Skills Development Scotland

Following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between MOD and SDS in March 2022, an action plan has been developed and agreed and is now being implemented to facilitate closer working between CTP and SDS. SDS has now met with the new Early Service Leaver adviser and are looking to deliver a continuing professional development (CPD) package to raise awareness of SDS services and areas where SDS can support delivery. Actions agreed include: developing a joint customer journey, a joint referral process, service development and product promotion & joint CPD sessions for CTP/SDS colleagues.

Armed Forces and Veterans Community Group

The SFC-led Armed Forces and Veterans Community Group (AFVCG), which supports the work of the HE/FE Veterans Champions Network, continues to meet three times per academic year. A proposal to set-up a Scottish Military Research Hub was approved for funding by the Veterans Foundation in August. So far, the Hub includes 11 Universities.

The AFVCG continues to work closely with MOD’s Directorate of Training, Education, Skills, Recruiting & Resettlement (TESRR) and CTP with a proposal to have dedicated educational opportunities briefing sessions at CTP online workshops agreed. Online and face to face sessions have been delivered in academic year 2021-22 with further sessions planned for the Academic Year 2022-23. Work to improve the Enhanced Learning Credits Administration Services (ELCAS) offering continues with some progress being made in terms of understanding institutional issues.

Scottish Funding Council (SFC)

The SFC’s dedicated webpage outlining sources of information, advice and guidance for veterans, Service leavers and their families continues to be reviewed and maintained. SFC’s communications teams continue to use social media channels to promote events relevant for veterans and the Armed Forces community.

A presentation to promote educational opportunities to the family members of the Armed Forces Serving community has been created and the priority for Academic Year 2022-23 will be its delivery. This work has been carried out by four universities (Edinburgh Napier, Glasgow Caledonian, Glasgow and Stirling). Collaborative work has been undertaken between Napier and Forces Children Scotland to promote educational opportunities to Service children.

The Service Children’s Progression Alliance launched its Thriving Lives Toolkit Online Platform in April 2022.

For the first time, the SFC’s Report on Widening Access (ROWA) 2020-21 published information on veterans and Service leavers college and university enrolment. The data showed that at least 290 Service leavers enrolled in a Scottish college or university in 2020-21.

Like veterans, Service children or children of military families are also one of the ‘At Risk’ groups. These are students at risk of not achieving their full potential, from aspirations through to successful outcomes and appropriate employment. Students from Service families are now being identified in the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) Student return and data will likely be available in 2023. The data on Service children or military families will in future enable SFC and other public bodies to plan and make informed decisions about students from Service families.

Scottish Government Employment

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing the number of veterans it employs and continues to explore a number of ways to achieve this. Since 2021 at least 34 veterans have joined the Scottish Government. We are considering whether we can replicate the wider Civil Service Great Place to Work scheme, which allows veterans who meet the minimum criteria to progress to the next stage with their application for most vacancies, and we continue to offer work placements and Fixed Term Appointments to veterans and the partners/spouses of veterans and Serving personnel through the Going Forward Into Employment (GFIE) programme. This programme is ongoing with plans to identify more vacancies and match these to suitable veterans, their partners or partners of currently serving personnel.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government had a stand at the CTP Careers Fair in May where we had the opportunity to engage with several Armed Forces personnel, Service leavers and veterans to discuss the type of roles within the Scottish Government, where to find them and how to apply.

NHS Employment

A five-year project is currently in-train that will specifically focus on attracting veterans to employment within the NHS. This work is being led by National Education for Scotland (NES) and the Scottish Government will continue to engage with this project as it develops.

Furthermore, NHS Scotland have had their Defence Employer Recognition Scheme Gold Award renewed. The scheme encompasses bronze, silver and gold awards for employer organisations that pledge, demonstrate or advocate support to defence and the Armed Forces community, and align their values with the Armed Forces Covenant.

Police Scotland Employment

Opportunities to volunteer as a Special Constable are included as part of the attraction work being carried out by the Positive Action Recruitment Team with veterans. Work has also commenced to investigate whether it would be possible for Military Police Reservists to become Special Constables via Employer Supported policing, both as a way of expanding reservists’ exposure to policing and to bring their skillset into policing.

In support of the Armed Forces Covenant, the Positive Action Team have established a close relationship with the Wounded-Injured-Sick Programme (WISP) which supports veterans who have been discharged from the Armed Forces on medical grounds and seeks to identify employment opportunities in civilian roles. The purpose of the WISP is to engage with veterans and support injured veterans leaving the Armed Forces. Five veterans have engaged with the programme to date.

The Positive Action team are also actively supporting any veteran or Service leaver who wishes to pursue a career with Police Scotland either as a police officer or within Police Scotland’s staff network.

Police Scotland were also represented at the Career Transition Partnership employment fair in Edinburgh in May to highlight to veterans and Service leavers the opportunities within Police Scotland.

Scottish Armed Forces Education Support Group (SAFESG)

The SAFESG continues to take a lead in developing and supporting best practice for Armed Forces Children and Young People (AF CYP).

The Scottish Government has provided £50,000 to support the continuation of the National Transitions Officer (NTO) role. As part of this, the NTO will work with local authorities to gather and collate data on children from Armed Forces families in Scotland. This will be used to inform both national and local policy as well as providing a useful dataset for research on these learners. The first report is due at the end of December 2022. Working closely with the Centre for Military Research, Education and Public Engagement (CMREPE) at Edinburgh Napier University, the NTO will identify and support relevant research into barriers to learning.

Education Scotland, working collaboratively with the Association of Directors of Education Scotland (ADES) NTO and Forces Children Scotland, developed a professional learning resource. This resource provides information about deployment, mobility, transitions and the impacts these can have on children from Armed Forces families.

As part of our broader work on implementation of the Additional Support for Learning action plan, we will continue to engage both Armed Forces stakeholders and young people directly to ensure the unique characteristics of mobility and deployment are fully considered in this work.