Evaluate the outcomes of what's already been spent before throwing more millions at veterans' initiatives
As Remembrance Day approaches, the UK's 1.85m veterans have been promised "easier access to essential care and support" under a new system called VALOUR. £50m has been set aside to fund the project which is described as being part of the Government’s commitment to renew the nation’s contract1 with the military. CEO of Veterans Aid, Professor Hugh Milroy, looks at how much has been spent in recent years, and to what effect - and questions how much benefit (if any) this latest initiative will bring.
"Nothing is done for veterans" is a familiar cry on slow news days; usually accompanied by a personal story that speaks directly to the heart - and sometimes louder than any set of facts or context. And woe betide anyone who challenges the narrative. Indeed a member of my own staff was trolled and vilified on social media for explaining to an aspiring young journalist that not all veterans were heroes!
What the public - and, dare I say, the media? - may not know, is that an eyewatering amount has been spent on veterans in the past decade - literally billions since 2010. Given that veterans account for just 3.8 per cent of the population, the majority never need help, some only served for weeks or months and there are around 1,800 service charities to support them in some way, that is quite a significant sum. Indeed, support for veterans has come a long way since the days when Kipling wrote:
"They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!"
- The Last of the Light Brigade
Of course, as the saying goes, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. In other words, numbers can be crunched to illustrate almost anything; but the keyword here is 'almost', because by any calculation, vast amounts of money have been spent on veterans.
Between 2012-2017 the largest portion of the monies disbursed by the £933m Libor Fund - went to charities supporting the Armed Forces and Emergency Services. Year on year, long and short term veterans' initiatives are funded; relating to health, housing, employment, digital services, training etcetera - some of which seem to sink without trace. There are projects, partnerships, identity items, recognition, healthcare, employment and compensation schemes. Collectively they amount to billions; the money trail is often labyrinthine and obscure, but even rudimentary searching reveals something of the scale of the outlay. And yet... the myth persists that nothing is done.
Why is this? Could it be that costly ventures are publicised before any attempt is made to examine why earlier 'solutions' (sic) have failed?
I read about projects like VALOUR with mixed feelings; the proposed regional support centres will require funding and staffing. Once up and running they will either have to replicate, or link-in to, existing services/charities, possibly doubling administration and waiting times. And as for being a 'one stop shop' - (a phrase that echoes ominously) - what happened to the 2017 Veterans Gateway (now subsumed into OVA) that aspired to be just that? Or Op Courage and its pledge to offer 'joined up' mental health services - and Op Fortitude, that aspired to provide a pathway to housing for veterans?
And why does the Government believe that a further £50m needs to be spent on funding a system that is already, effectively, in place? Could it be that successive Governments don't actually know what is out there, or care about auditing what their predecessors initiated?
VALOUR HQ, we are told, will sit in the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA) within the Ministry of Defence, where a new team will provide assurance and training across the VALOUR network - gathering data and insight, working with policy and research teams to ensure that services are designed to meet local needs. My question remains, is this based on need or political box-ticking? And what expertise will this new team draw on?
So, nothing tangible so far in terms of emergency help, or solutions to our biggest frontline crisis, which is poverty.
VALOUR support centres will facilitate access to multiple (presumably existing?) services for veterans. They will operate to high standards and provide timely data to the UK Government about the needs and experiences of veterans to inform future service improvements. Its Regional Networks will be supported by dedicated, locally based VALOUR regional field officers (new staffing costs?) who will bring together stakeholders across local government, public services and the third sector, and facilitate the exchange of data, insight and learning between local government and VALOUR HQ. NB These officers will not replace Armed Forces Champions, Veterans’ Champions or other similar posts, who operate at a more local level.
I am struggling to understand how expenditure of £50m on a system that appears to be inserting yet another layer of non-operational bureaucracy between local agencies and existing charities can change the national perception that little or nothing is done for veterans.
This may seem like a counterintuitive position for the CEO of a military charity to take, but after 17 years of service in the Royal Air Force, and in an active role delivering support to veterans in crisis for a further 20 years, I have learned a couple of things!
Firstly, you don't need a multi-million pound data gathering system to find out what veterans want. They want the same things as everyone else - healthcare, a home, a job, food on the table, bills that they can afford to pay etc.
Secondly, whatever is done to support veterans, it will never be enough, because they are human and they are a part of - not 'apart from' - society. As long as we treat them like a special needs group, whose problems are uniquely attributable to a period of military service (of indeterminate length) that defines them for life, we will likely fail. Bureaucracy cannot possibly deal with the complexity of peoples’ lives.
The answer lies in creating a society that recognises and supports the needs of everyone - whether it be for physical/mental health care, housing, employment, education, or simple companionship. The more we stovepipe service delivery, the more money we will waste in replication.
Replication of expenditure damages everyone but, sadly, the aphorism "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is true - and as long as the pavlovian response to the word 'veteran' is designation as either ‘hero' or ‘victim', we will never get provision of care into perspective, and we will continue to over-attribute characteristics to a group that is almost as diverse as the general population.
So, I would like to leave you with an observation.
Veterans Aid occupies just two locations - an operational HQ and a residential facility. It has a turnover of just over £2m and deals with UK ex-service personnel from all over the world. It networks with multiple organisations nationwide in the course of sourcing and providing immediate, professional support to veterans in crisis.
It gathers and analyses data, records expenditure, co-operates, partners or interacts with myriad external organisations (typically 70 per week), is externally validated and records outcomes (a steady 90 per cent success rate) that are demonstrable. It is, in microcosm, what this latest £50m proposal aspires to become.
So I urge those driving the VALOUR initiative to take a moment - or indeed, a truth pill - to ask what the billions (already spent on putatively game-changing initiatives) have achieved? Where did the money go? What were the outcomes? What lessons were learned? And why is another £50m being spent on providing assurance and training/gathering data and insight/working with policy and research teams/bringing together stakeholders/facilitating insight and learning etc. instead of investing in what is known to work?
This is what veterans in crisis need - not £50m-worth of window dressing which looks good politically but is basically just another costly signpost to existing delivery organisations.
If I might conclude by paraphrasing Shakespeare's Othello, we are a nation that spends, 'not wisely but too well'. It’s time the money followed the need as opposed to the narrative. If all the costly initiatives launched in recent years haven't effected any positive change, and veterans are still perceived as needy and broken individuals, then maybe the problem isn’t with them, but with the system?
- The Armed Forces Covenant
