Things have changed radically for veterans since Remembrance Day was inaugurated!

Social media posts about disaffected veterans, service personnel (and their families) who have been abandoned by 'the system', and a growing anti-war lobby are now commonplace.

The issues are huge and systemic. At Veterans Aid we see them all, but the one I want to focus on is veteran care, and its contribution to the process of change that is reshaping the landscape of defence. For example:

We recently took a call, from a neighbour, regarding 90-year-old former Guardsman - whom I'll call George. Vulnerable and living alone, he was about to run out of oil and had no other form of heating for his home. Like many of his generation, George was reluctant to admit he was struggling. A friend tried to intervene on his behalf, but despite finding many 'signposts' to support, was unable to find any source of immediate, practical help - until he came across Veterans Aid.

We had two options: Refer George into 'the system' which would investigate his circumstances and decide, in the fullness of time, what allowances he might qualify for - or make an immediate payment to relieve his distress and ensure that his fears about being cold and becoming ill were allayed. We did the latter - but on further investigation found that nobody in 'the system' knew about him. The uncomfortable truth was that George had become invisible.

Sadly, calls relating to poverty land with us every day. George is not an isolated failure but a symptom of a much deeper problem. A wealthy sector should not have poor veterans. It is difficult to celebrate success while former servicemen and women are still choosing between heating and eating, relying on food banks or facing eviction. The paradox is hard to ignore - despite substantial resources, extensive charitable and Government infrastructure and decades of effort, poverty remains a persistent feature of too many veterans' lives. Until that changes, we should be cautious about measuring success by activity alone. The real test is not how much is spent, but whether veteran poverty is actually reduced.

Too often, the answer to a complex problem is a referral, signpost or appointment to address a single issue. All have their place but are not solutions in themselves. Veterans in crisis need holistic support from organisations with a comprehensive overview of their situation and the authority, resources and determination to actively deliver the help they need to regain - and sustain - their independence.

Current support is too often transactional. A need is presented; in due course, a response is issued; the case is closed. A voucher, a referral, an assessment date, a one-off grant. Each may be reasonable in isolation. Together, they can create a system that manages crises without ending them. The same pattern runs through the funding. Money arrives too slowly, in amounts too small, and sometimes not at all.

Bureaucratic behemoths abound in the charity sector. Funds to support time-critical interventions are often difficult to access, heavily caveated and delivered too late to meet urgent need. Last year, Veterans Aid spent £209,000 on detoxification and counselling for veterans in its care. Not a penny came from central Government.

This funding is not an optional extra. Untreated addiction and trauma can undermine every other intervention. No-one can sustain a tenancy, hold down a job or rebuild a stable life if their underlying problems remain unaddressed. Housing, employment and financial support may all be necessary but, without appropriate treatment, they may not be enough.

Meanwhile, the costs mount. Rent arrears become eviction. Eviction becomes homelessness. Homelessness can lead to a mental health emergency, hospital admission or, in some cases, contact with the police and the criminal justice system. This is a false economy. Spending too little, too slowly, may look prudent in the short term. In reality, it pushes the problem into the future, where it is likely to cost more to resolve.

The choice is not simply between spending money and saving it. It is between investing early, halting adversity in its tracks and brokering enduring solutions rather than paying repeatedly for the consequences of failure. It is about moving away from bureaucratic ad hoc philanthropy towards a system that is fit for purpose in an age when responses are expected in seconds and solutions in hours. It is about a system that truly sees and works to support the human aspects of crises.

The current issue regarding legacy investigations illustrates the problem perfectly. This is not an argument about whether investigations should take place. That is a matter for Parliament and the courts. The issue is how the people affected are supported while those processes unfold, whatever their eventual outcome.

But the consequences do not end with the individual under investigation. Who supports the spouse carrying the strain year after year? Who recognises the adult children who become carers? Who helps former comrades called as witnesses to revisit events they may have spent decades trying to put behind them? In reality, these individuals are abandoned.

These are not peripheral concerns. They are part of the human cost of service and its aftermath. Yet the people carrying that burden may not fit support criteria, qualify for a particular referral or meet a funder’s definition of need. It exposes a troubling divide in the way veteran support can operate; those regarded as deserving of help and those, in practice, left outside the system. That sits uneasily with the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant. The reality is that Veterans Aid is supporting people experiencing these pressures now.

I believe this problem can be solved. The resources, expertise and authority already exist across Government, the charity sector and wider society. What is needed is the determination to ensure that support is driven by need, not by convenience, visibility or circumstance. We should not be comfortable, and our work is not done, while any veteran or family is left carrying these burdens alone.

Part of the problem lies in what the sector measures - and its focus on activity rather than outcomes. Calls answered. Referrals made. Programmes delivered. Money raised. These figures have their place, but they say little about the question that matters most: Is a veteran’s life better a year later? Has the veteran remained housed? Is their income secure? Have their debts been resolved? Are they receiving the treatment they need? Have they avoided another crisis?

There is a further difficulty when funding becomes a means of control. Too often, the conditions attached to grants can steer charities towards particular partners or prescribed referral routes, even when another organisation may be better placed to meet an individual veteran’s needs. The result is a system shaped around the funder’s preferred structure rather than the person seeking help.

This is not an attack on individual funders, many of whom are generous and committed. It is a structural problem. When the same purse sets the rules, determines the partnerships and judges success, accountability can flow upwards towards the funder rather than outwards towards the person in need.

Two changes are essential.

• First, measure outcomes and verify them independently. Public funding for veterans’ support should be tied to independently assessed, published outcomes that reward tackling the hardest cases, while recognising that the human contact behind those results (time, continuity and skilled caseworkers) is core work that must be funded, not an overhead to be cut. There is a risk that targets incentivise the dumping of difficult clients.
• Second, make funding follow the veteran. Funding should never stop a charity working with whichever partner can best help a veteran, so exclusive partner lists and rigid referral routes should be phased out, major funders should publish their conditions openly, and the Charity Commission should give trustees the confidence to challenge restrictions without fear for their income, always judging an arrangement by whether it helps the veteran rather than whether it fits a funding structure.

At 11am, on November 11th, the nation will fall silent, as it has for more than a century. Remembrance is woven into the fabric of British life; a moment when we come together to honour those who gave their lives and those who continue to carry the cost of service.

That act of remembrance matters. It is a promise that sacrifice will not be forgotten, and it must be protected and cherished. But a promise made in November must mean something in March, June and September, too. It must mean something when a veteran loses a home, when addiction takes hold, when a family is worn down by years of uncertainty or when someone reaches out for help and has nowhere to sleep.

There is evidence that sustained, practical support that directly attacks poverty can make a measurable difference to the lives of veterans in crisis. Veterans Aid commissioned Cambridge Econometrics to assess its work independently, using a sample of veterans supported in 2022/23. The assessment found net savings to society of up to £2.6m in a single year and reported that around 90 per cent of those veterans went on to sustain independent lives.

The current system fails some veterans, and it fails those in poverty most of all. Its bureaucracy can inadvertently sort people who served into the deserving and the undeserving, rationing help by paperwork rather than need. That is immoral. Support must also reach the parts of the veteran story that are uncomfortable to talk about; the poverty, the families left to cope alone, the legacy of service that lands on partners and children long after discharge. The choice now is stark: Keep patching up crises as they emerge, or build a system that prevents, resolves and learns from them.

We can go on fighting for veterans’ wellbeing with sticks and stones, or we can match the agility, precision and ambition of the technology now transforming modern combat. The system must move on and stop ignoring the realities facing some veterans. The cost of service does not end when service does, and neither should our duty to carry it.

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