Supporting our Armed Forces Community

Armed forces personnel make sacrifices in order to serve. They go where they are sent, when they are sent. This means families have to move, sometimes with little notice, to unfamiliar areas, or they may have to live apart for extended periods of time and cope with the issues that this can bring. And they will face the stresses and strains that arise when their loved one is deployed on operational commitments.

The vast majority of the 2.8 million ex-Servicemen and women living in Britain today have successfully adapted to civilian life, putting the skills and experience they acquired while serving in the Armed Forces to good use. However, a significant minority can be in need of support either at the point of discharge or many years afterwards.

All of this means that they can find themselves at a disadvantage in accessing goods and services.

Visit the Armed Forces Covenant website for more information.

Our commitment to this community hinges on two key principles:

• The armed forces community should not face disadvantage in the provision of public services
• Special consideration is appropriate in some cases for those who have given the most, such as the injured or bereaved.

In practice this means ensuring the armed forces community is taken into account when writing and implementing policies that impact upon our local population.

The Armed Forces Covenant Duty

The Armed Forces Covenant Duty further strengthens the Covenant into law. It is a legal obligation on certain public bodies to pay due regard to the Covenant principles when exercising healthcare, education and housing functions. It is an opportunity to build upon work councils are already leading to help serving personnel, reservists, veterans, and their families to have the same equality of access to public services as their civilian neighbours.